Review of Broken Ceiling (2018) by The All-Seeing I — 12 Dec 2018

Adam Davis thoroughly nails the corruptive trickle-down consequences of sleaze bag corporate leadership in the wonderful "Broken Ceiling.".

The choices that Davis makes consistently strike gold: His characters are few, but his casting is spot-on. We have the instantly recognizable wheeler-dealer sleaze merchant of a boss, flanked dutifully by his two young, white male patsies on their aspirational journey towards middle management. And then there's Angela Walker - the oppressed but no longer self-repressed black female assistant to the resident dirtbag; she's constantly passed over for promotion ("you're too valuable doing what you do") in favor of another young, fresh-faced caucasian sycophant she's then forced to train. When Angela's threshold for being a dehumanized lackey is properly expended, she pulls a gun during an all-hands, high stakes conference call - and finally, we find someone in the building with values.

Davis reminds us that writing drives all storytelling; without it, little matters. Broken Ceiling attends to that truth with sharp, measured, high craft dialogue that pops from the first frame. For anyone who may have cast their lot with an office employer before then spending most of their waking hours interfacing with strange and sometimes abhorrent people, that exact lunacy plays out wonderfully here. Broken Ceiling is highly recommended, and particularly for the self-aware corporate warrior.