The Efficiency Expert

1991 Comedy

Also released as Spotswood, The Efficiency Expert stars Anthony Hopkins as Wallace, a cold-blooded management consultant, infamous for radically "downsizing" every firm he comes in contact with. Wallace's latest assignment is to streamline a small, family-owned shoe factory in Australia. As he gets to know the eccentric (and endearingly inefficient) factory workers, Wallace undergoes a slow-but-sure "humanizing" process. Eventually realizing that he can simultaneously cut costs and preserve the dignity of the workers, he finds a way to modernize the operation without a single firing. In traditional fashion, the main story shares screen time with a romantic subplot involving the factory-owner's son and a female employee. Characterized by many critics as "Capraesque," The Efficiency Expert also bears trace of all those Ealing comedies of the 1950s. more..

Director: Mark Joffe

Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Ben Mendelsohn, Alwyn Kurts, Bruno Lawrence, John Walton

Reviews

No reviews

Awards

  • Best Achievement in Cinematography

    Australian Film Institute (1991)

  • Mark Joffe

    Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (1992)