- Chemist: "Adi, just like Pele, who you are about to meet, represents a very important social group: he is jobless."
Job,or the Last Brain Cell (Job, czyli ostatnia szara komórka) is a 2006 Polish comedy directed by Konrad Niewolski, and starring Tomasz Borkowski, Andrzej Andrzejewski, Borys Szyc and Agnieszka Włodarczyk.
"Chemist" (Szyc), a chemistry student dealing with "narratomania", or the constant desire to narrate his life, tells the story of Adrian "Adi" Tujak (Borkowski) and Piotr "Pele" (Andrzejewski), his jobless friends trying to find themselves a place in the Polish job market.
Adi receives an offer through his girlfriend, Karolina (Włodarczyk). In a few weeks, there is going to be an interview for a lucrative corporate position, and he has a high chance of landing it. There is just one catch: the job requires good knowledge of English, and Adi does not know the language at all. He is required to learn it in the meantime. Can he do it?
In addition, the film tells the story of Pele's grandma dealing with her dementia using her grandson's marijuana, Pele trying to pass his driving exam, and a lot of other subplots based on popular Polish jokes.
This work contains following tropes:
- Basement-Dweller: All three main characters live with their parents. However, they do it because they don't have the money required to move out, having no steady job (Adi, Pele) or being students (Chemist).
- Celebrity Cameo: Krzysztof Ibisz, a famous Polish presenter, hosts the Show Within A Film about feuding neighbours.
- Chekhov's Skill: Adi knowing Hungarian turns out to be useful when he uses it to save the Hungarian ambassador's life, and as a reward, becomes the cultural attaché of Hungary in Poland, with Pele becoming the ambassador's driver.
- Conveniently Interrupted Document: The photo of the poop a nameless character is scared of is "lost" by the filmmakers.
- Cringe Comedy: The bits that aren't based on retelling of ages-old jokes instead revolve around this trope, in a very forced manner.
- Culture Chop Suey: The Asian bar Ali worked in before it got closed by the sanitary inspector had a Chinese-accented owner, sold Vietnamese cuisine and had signs in both Chinese and Vietnamese.
- Driving Test: Pele has to retake his exam, following losing his license as a result of breaking the traffic laws in the past numerous times. It does not help that the instructor is a pedantic ex-State Security agent.
- There is also a scene where Karolina takes hers. She fails immediately, due to getting into the backseat, instead of the front one.
- Education Through Pyrotechnics: Chemist had set his family's apartment on fire using his chemistry set when he was a child.
- Feuding Families: In case of two neigbouring families in the main characters' apartment complex, it goes to such extent that they star in a game show based on that trope.
- Football Hooligans: One of the nameless characters is one, always wearing Polish national football team colours. His son also seems to be following in the footsteps.
- Heroic BSoD: After failing to learn English, Adi doesn't even bother showing up at the corporate job interview.
- Irony: The film opens with a film critic ravaging the movie for unfunny jokes, wooden acting, lack of plot and no finess. Which is exactly what real critics had to say about it after the premiere.
- Loser Protagonist: Neither Adi nor Pele are able to hold a steady job.
- Meaningful Nickname: Chemist got his after setting his family's apartment on fire with a chemistry set as a child, and Pele liked to play football when he was young.
- Product Placement: The SITA English learning help device are mentioned by name. However, there is a twist on the trope: Adi ultimately ends up not buying it, due to not having enough money. He settles for a Shoddy Knockoff Product version.
- Show Within The Film: Two ezamples:
- A game show about feuding neighbouring families insulting each other, where the winner gets to trash the losers' apartment.
- "Job, The Workaholic's And Jobless' Program", a fictional TV show showing different jobs in a Film Noir parody style.
- Sleep Learning: Adi tries to learn English that way, in order to know it for a new job. However, it turns out that he was sold a CD with Hungarian lessons, and in the process, he learns Hungarian, not English
- Spoiled Brat: Pele. As Chemist puts it, "Pele's childhood was hard... for his family. And for his neighbours, too".
- The Stoner: Despite smoking marijuana, Pele is not an example. His grandma, however, is. After discovering her grandson's stash, she starts smoking it, and keeps spending afternoons mindlessly staring at the TV screen.
- Also, Adi's Rastafarian English tutor.
- Wretched Hive: Being a conservative, Pele's grandma views the Netherlands as one. In fact, after she stops taking her medication, her family threatens to send her there, if she does not go back to her meds. It works.
