Dolly Parton-Led Documentary Still Working 9 to 5 a Jewel in Hot Docs Festival Crown

Leave it to Dolly Parton to remind the world that documentaries represent some of the best, most innovative, and essential filmmaking going. Also, that women continue to be pushed down by systemic patriarchy even in the ostensibly progressive 21st century.

Parton is among those featured in the dazzling new documentary Still Working 9 to 5, one of the 226 non-fiction titles from 63 countries — 49 percent directed by women — screening at the 29th edition of the annual Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival, the planet’s largest and most prestigious. 

Happening April 28 through May 8 in cinemas across Toronto — and streaming online to audiences across Canada — the amazing lineup of programming includes 63 world premieres, 47 international premieres, 36 North American premieres, 42 Canadian premieres, 12 Ontario premieres, eight Toronto premieres and 18 special screenings, with each filed under a specific heading ranging from “Nightvision” to “Hidden Histories” to “Special Presentations.”

Still Working 9 to 5 makes its international premiere in Toronto as a Special Presentation, and special it is. The film’s title, of course, refers to the 1980 big-screen comedy 9 to 5, Parton’s first cinematic role which found her opposite heavyweights Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as one of three women doing thankless secretarial work in an office built on a bedrock of gender inequality and sexual harassment. 

In other words, your typical office circa 1980.

The original film was a smash hit to the surprise of even its own cast and crew, becoming the highest-grossing comedy of 1980, and the second highest grossing film overall in the U.S that year, behind only the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back. Despite receiving middling reviews — mostly by male critics in yet another profession that had scant female representation at that time — 9 to 5 found an enthusiastic global audience. 

The reason for that, the doc posits, is that 9 to 5 gave voice to a legion of women in clerical fields and beyond whose work was undervalued and underpaid and whose lives were frequently upended and/or devastated by pervasive harassment in an era when disciplinary action for such things was still a vague HR concept yet to be fully realized and put into practice. 

Via interviews with the original film’s cast — Parton, Fonda, and Tomlin, their co-star Dabney Coleman, producer Bruce Gilbert plus actors Allison Janney and Rita Moreno (who starred in the 9 to 5 Broadway adaptation and the TV version, respectively), American labour leader Karen Nussbaum, civil rights activist Zoe Nicholson among many eloquent others — the documentary charts the film’s impact on, and representation of, working women.

It also shows how its comedic aspect made the film vastly more palatable to mainstream audiences despite the intense core subject matter. The doc looks at how far women have come in some ways as well as tabulating the many challenges that remain in the workplace. 

Still Working 9 to 5 is also a treasure trove of trivia about the original movie. How Fonda got the idea of casting Parton after serendipitously hearing her on the radio. How in screenwriter Patricia Resnick's original script, there were five women conspiring to kill their awful boss (played by Coleman) rather than the final three who ended up on screen.

How late director Colin Higgins — who’d made his name penning the cult classic Harold and Maude — came up with the idea of the women kidnapping their boss. How the 1930s-era screwball comedies of Preston Sturges served as inspiration. How the TV version of the film, which ran for three seasons from 1981 to 1984 and was co-produced by Fonda and Gilbert, failed to capture the lightning in a bottle that was its source material. 

Through it all, 9 to 5 gave the feminist movement — by 1980 still contested and controversial even in circles that included women (!) — a handy artistic reference point as well as a storyline unimpeachably rooted in the reality of the era.

Even those unfamiliar with the original film are likely to be captivated by Still Working 9 to 5, given its principal female cast — who remain luminous and sharp as tacks at a collective age of 244 years — and the film’s enduring place in the broader pop culture landscape. 

“The movie really pointed out a lot of things, a lot of issues that needed to be pointed out,” Parton offers of 9 to 5 in the documentary. “And the fact that it was what it was at that time. It was almost a protest movie of a sort.” 

Indeed, it was. And thanks to the army of forward-thinking women like Parton, gender parity is today more reality than dream. Hot tip: when you watch this doc, be sure to stick through the credits to see our gal reprising 9 to 5’s eponymous hit theme song — written and recorded by Parton, and Oscar-nominated to boot — opposite a marquee special guest. 

Really, is there anything our Ms. Parton can’t do?

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Still Working 9 to 5 screens thrice during Hot Docs, on April 29 at TIFF Bell Lightbox, and May 2 and 7 at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema. Online streaming, meanwhile, is available for five days beginning April 30 at 9:00am. Find tickets here.

Of note, Hot Docs offers free tickets for all screenings before 5 pm to those 60+ and students with valid photo I.D., available online the day of the screening, subject to availability. So, there is really no excuse not to see this film or any one of the many excellent others on offer via Hot Docs in the coming days.