Living in a world where people are running in a race that has no end is not a new fact. But the point of reusing this concept again and again is that the awareness of this universal truth does not make people stop. This is what drives the story of HBO’s new workplace drama ‘Industry.’
‘Industry’ follows the story of young graduates who have just entered to work in the market when there was cut throat competition after the recession of 2008 financial crisis. The five main leads start working at a prestigious bank in London and starts fighting for the job from Day 1.
This series keeps introducing you to the characters in a very evident way and they all look too much apart from each other. It includes a big workplace with people behaving differently with each person but it doesn’t really have the insanity of ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ or the charm of ‘The Big Short.’
Each scene feels still and you feel that the episode is going to end this moment but it goes on. To simplify, the scene doesn’t seems flowing and look like different parts attached together. The direction is very simple and seems like a short film rather than an episode from a series.
The show continues to portray the over passionate employees working in high finance who do every unusual thing to rise above others and keep their job safe. They don’t sleep properly, eat properly, socialize and somehow lose self-respect along the way. From the use of drugs to a high urge of sex it showed the glimpse of all.
None of the actors are unique. They all have traits that you must’ve seen in other workplace shows. The characters seem predictable and the actors look like they are acting which is not a good sign. They don’t look real and hence you are not really attached to them. This lacks your motivation to continue the show further.
The story till now is uninteresting and feels old. The dialogues are hackneyed and the background score is so cliché’ that it does not have any major impact on you. Although when you see the sequence as a whole, it may not make you curious but it may seem a little bit familiar to you in a good way.
A lot of surveys show that people are watching old shows during this pandemic because they are familiar and they feel in control of the situation. The awareness of the story and its characters gives them a comfortable feeling. This can work in favor of the show because it does have the quality of comfort, which might have backfired in normal situation but can help during the unusual working circumstances around the world.
This show has a lot of potential and is worth giving a chance. You can watch it if you want to watch serious workplace related content but also don’t want to exhaust a lot of your brain cells on a series.
I give it 3/5 stars.
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