Selling Dreams and Schemes: An Exploration of ’Glengarry Glen Ross’

The movie was set in the year 1990 in Chicago by David Mamet. The play features four real estate salesmen (Levene, Aaronow, Moss, Roma) and their office boss Williamson. The salesmen dupe their innocent clients into buying their property at inflated prices. Glengarry is the property that each of the salesmen was trying to sell while Glen Ross Farms is a certain land which the characters in the movie say it was profitable in the past. The salesmen were paid purely on commission hence they had to sell to get paid. A month long sales contest hosted by their unseen company owners Mitch and Murray had brought a lot of trouble to the salesmen. The person with the most sales was to be given a reward, a car, while the last two salesmen would be fired.

Review

Roma found himself at the top of the list while the other three struggled and their anxiety rose.  Lavene, one of the salesmen, tried to draw some sales leads from his manager Williamson so as to have an upper hand against his competitors. He tried all the convincing methods he knew but Williamson could not go against the policies of the company. The act continues with Moss and Aaronow discussing the unfair policies of the company. Moss suggested breaking to their boss office, steal their best leads and sale them to Graff, a former employee who had started his own company. Aaronow rejects the idea. Moss threatened to implicate him should he get caught even if he Aaronow did not participate in the act. Act one ends with Roma and a man named Lingk who is hooked into his deals as a new client. The following day, someone had broken into the office. A police detective, Bylen, was questioning the salesmen. Roma comes in having just learned about the incident. He asks if the Lingk contract was among the stolen items because if it was, it meant that his chances of winning the car were diminishing. However, Williamson told him that the contract had been filed (Hajduk).

Levene entered the office with a bright look. He had just closed a deal with an elderly couple. He was convinced that despite a fruitless period, his expertise as a salesman had just returned. At the same time, Moss enters from the temporary interrogating room complaining about the treatment he had received from Baylen. As Levene brags about his big sale, Moss pays no attention to him. Roma Defends Levene, while Moss accuses Roma of flaunting his success and then storms out of the office. After a short while, Lingk enters. His wife had sent him to back out of the contract he signed with Roma.  Roma quickly exits the scene pretending that Levene is a client he must rush to the airport.

Meanwhile, Roma had a confrontation with Williamson, whom he blamed for ruining the sale. Williamson, after arranging the pieces together realized that from what he knew about the filing of the contract, Levene had to be the one who broke into the office. Williamson reported Levene to Baylen, who later arrested Levene. In the end, no sales are being made.

Conclusion

The whole movie is full of humor. As I watched the movie, I it is very sickening at the great lengths bosses go to in their attempts to enrich themselves without caring for the well being of their employees or the clients. I felt that every person is responsible for his own predicament and that i have the power to either be successful or a failure.

Work Cited

Brian Hajduk, Glengarry Glen Ross, Retrieved from, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLbJl5tbKGw  accessed on November 4, 2018.