‘Still Working 9 to 5’ Review: Doc Examines 1980 Comedy’s Impact on Ongoing Fight for Gender Equity

The hit movie used laughs and stars to sell its message of equality, and things haven’t changed nearly enough over four decades

Still Working 9 to 5
Brian Tweedt/SXSW

“Still Working 9 to 5” was reviewed by TheWrap out of the 2022 SXSW Film Festival.

Camille Hardman and Gary Lane’s documentary “Still Working 9 to 5” cold-opens with an archival clip of Jane Fonda giving a television interview about “9 to 5,” the 1980 comedy she produced and starred in alongside Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton. As the interviewer presses her about what kind of film to expect from the radical activist, Fonda blurts, “it’s a movie about secretaries fantasizing about murdering their boss,” to which the interviewer responds, “So it’s not a political statement, is it?” This is an assertion that Hardman and Lane will emphatically disprove over the course of the next hour and 40 minutes. 

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