The key to happiness is money. Many would have you believe that money isn’t important. But they never had it.

Garmento starts with a light almost idiotic jab at the fashion industry and delivers a message that is deeper and in the era of corporate scandal: topical.

Grindy Malone (a very quirky Katie MacNichol) has always dreamed of working in the fashion industry. The film opens in 1978 and Grindy is a little girl shunned by her friends because her mother doesn’t buy her the designer jeans of the day, Poncho’s in the film. Flash forward fifteen years her favorite designer, the former jeans\' man Poncho Ramirez (Juan Carlos Hernández), has fallen on hard times. Poncho’s latest fashion invention, a padded crotch cup worn to enhance what mother nature left out, has been rejected by the mainstream leaving him cash poor. All Poncho has left is his name. Ronnie Grossman (played subtly by David Thornton) is the president of Poncho’s failing company and must find something new to keep the doors open.

Grindy is hired by Grossman as his assistant. Grossman is in the throws of frustration and, it appears, despair. He has a punching bag in his office that he strikes with a small wooden bat—sure beats the Hell out of a stress ball, wham, wham! Soon, Grossman is approached by a Mafioso-type, Ira Gold (hammed superiorly by Jerry Grayson). Gold runs a once popular but now struggling jeans line (think Sergio Valente, Gloria Vanderbilt, or Sasson, yes, I remember the seventies and Friday nights at the skate rink). As luck would have it, Gold’s nephew, Louie Purdaro (Matt Servitto), has found a market for the padded crotch cup in Japan (a scene I did not like).

Ira cuts a deal with Ronnie and the two companies merge to promote Poncho’s new jeans line. What happens next is worth watching because it’s original and intriguing.

In the first 20 minutes, Garmento wanted to be a comedy. It wasn’t working, so it became something else, something a little dark and different. There are no bad guys here; everyone is equally shallow. If the screenplay had featured a small measure of drug use, I would have sworn that Bret Easton Ellis had something to do with it. But, as it is, we are given a tidy little script populated by quirky characters that talk to one another realistically. It is the reality of all the shallow things said and done in this film that bothers me. People like this do exist!

So much of Garmento reminded me of those sick little romantic comedies of the 1980s that were playful and filled with excusably loveable stereotyped players. Those films were pure fantasy and ended with everything turning out just peachy. Who could forget Michael J. Fox as Brantley Foster a/k/a Carlton Whitfield in the formulaic The Secret of My Success or Kim Cattrall’s turn as a plastic goddess in Mannequin? Oh, yeah, you did forget those films. Well, gosh, they were forgettable and their staying power faded. Garmento, on the other hand, has a ‘80s feel with a distinctly contemporary focus—corporate greed. Given today’s corporate scandals, Garmento would have been ahead of its time had it been made in the early 1990s. Instead, I think it plays more like a healthy reminder, a warning.

Garmento benefits greatly from a nice underplayed performance by David Thornton as Ronnie. Ronnie is a soft-spoken, moody executive who wrestles with his conscience. Thornton’s performance makes Ronnie a continuing mystery that adds a power packed punch to the film’s critical scene.

Thornton’s talents are on full display when his character, Ronnie, perfectly handles the troubled designer Poncho who is embarrassed by his new jeans line at a fashion show. The words spoken by Thornton as Ronnie are well written but Thornton’s pacing gives them maximum effect. Later, we see the tension build in Ronnie and respect the way he handles it, executively, much the same way one would think that Kenneth Lay may have bottled things up until everything came crashing down. The viewer feels bad for Ronnie even when he is doing bad things. You want him to succeed much the same way audiences rooted for the working class heroes of the ‘80s light romantic comedies. It’s just that this time, well, it ain’t the ‘80s no more.

Not everything is good in Garmento. It felt a little forced in places and I thought that some of the characters were just unconvincing. I wondered if the prospect of selling padded crotch cups to the Japanese was a terribly insulting racial slur especially since this film is somewhat serious. The thing, I guess you could call it a “codpiece,” wouldn’t be very comfortable or even practical given its placement. Still, fashion has a way of overcoming such impracticalities. I’m not really sure what function a necktie serves anymore, but I continue to wear one 6 days a week and would be thrown out of court without a full windsor. And don’t get me started on why my wife must have high hells on occasion.

Your know, there was a time when corporate greed may have been acceptable, heck, even fashionable. Today, legislators are looking for ways to legislate more control into the corporate business organization. The reason for this: money, and the desire to safeguard the retirement accounts of millions of Americans. Do we actually believe that by making CEO’s sign corporate financial reports, the abuses of corporate greed can be avoided?

Reality check folks (old news to most of you), but according to the New York Times on May 4, 2002, “Steve Madden, who built a $240 million empire designing chunky shoes for teenagers, was sentenced yesterday [May 3, 2002] to 41 months in prison for stock fraud and money laundering.” Money may certainly be fashionable, but happiness just can’t be bought.

Jonathan W. Hickman, 2002