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[At the top of this post, you'll find a discussion from me and my Pop Culture Happy Hour colleague Stephen Thompson about Mike Nichols and his work. Stephen tells a great family story about the impact of Nichols' comedy — give it a listen.]

Separated by 21 years and joined by the direction of Mike Nichols, The Graduate and Working Girl at first seem to take up diametrically opposed attitudes toward the idea of joining the world of business. In the former, the whisper of "plastics" stands in for the inauthenticity of what Benjamin Braddock is being offered and the alienation he feels at the very idea of making that his "passion," if you can even call it that. In the latter, Tess McGill wants that office, wants that secretary, wants that rat-race commute and those meetings in high-backed leather chairs, wants the boyfriend who also knows all about mergers and acquisitions.

But what they have in common is displayed ambivalence toward wish fulfillment. Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman) eventually decides that what he really wants is Elaine, so he stops her wedding and they leave together. Tess (Melanie Griffith) knows that what she really wants is to move up, and she finally arrives in her own office with her own secretary, having finally been credited for her ideas and seen her tormentor Katharine (Sigourney Weaver) thrown out. Her new beau (Harrison Ford) even packed her lunch.

In both films, though, there's palpable uncertainty. Particularly in The Graduate, once Benjamin and Elaine are on the bus together, Nichols holds on them as their expressions change from euphoria to terror, maybe back and forth one more time, and then — maybe most ominously — Elaine looks over at Benjamin, but he, who has struggled with alienation from the world for almost two hours of screen time, does not look back at her.

The ending of Working Girl is more '80s feisty and less '60s moody, scored to Carly Simon's soaring "Let The River Run" rather than Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound Of Silence." It's lighter in tone and gives us a glimpse of Tess' gentler personality. It reminds us that she hasn't become a monster and will be kind to her own secretary (beautifully played for just a moment by the wonderful character actress Amy Aquino), and it gives her the joy of a call with her best friend Cynthia (Joan Cusack) and the secretarial pool to share the news that she has made it.

But as those who read the film closely have sometimes noted, Tess' is a small, spare, unadorned office. The walls are bare; the colors are stubbornly neutral, including those of her suit. She is not in a beautiful place. We leave her by peering in her window, and then pulling back to be reminded that she is one of countless people in countless identical offices, as she effectively vanishes into the city. She has had a victory, and she is in love, and she is happy, and she has gotten justice, but she has fulfilled a very particular fantasy very much of its moment, only a year after Wall Street. It is too much to believe that a guy like Nichols was looking uncritically at the glass slipper at issue here.

These are both stories that end with ellipses. While they're really different, they don't necessarily try to put a period at the ends of these stories; there is more to come in both cases. The words "ever after," as they usually appear at the ends of fairy tales, are nonsensical — who has ever been happy ever after? "They rode off together" and "They rode off together..." are very different ways to close your book.

Before he directed movies, Nichols directed plays, including the original productions of both Barefoot In The Park and The Odd Couple. But in addition to that, Mike Nichols came out of doing straight-up sketch comedy, as you know if you've seen the early performing he did with Elaine May, which sometimes had its own undercurrent of weird darkness. Here's a sketch in which Nichols plays a man trying to arrange a cheap funeral with a customer service representative who introduces herself as "your Grief Lady."

YouTube

He had a really good feel as a director for bringing out that uncertain, unsettled energy that suffuses the last shots of both The Graduate and Working Girl. It's a kind of narrative ambiguity that's also abundant in the unnerving film adaptation of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf?, which he also directed, which is all about initially pleasant conversation upended by agony, particularly on the part of Martha (Elizabeth Taylor). Even Barefoot In The Park, written by Neil Simon (which Nichols did not direct on film but only in the theater), is one of those comedies about young love that always seems balanced on the edge of becoming blisteringly sad and ending up a bust.

Nichols had a great feel for this tension between the foreground and the background, between the story that's being told and the often foreboding context in which it's happening, which is almost always more easily perceived than explained. That's certainly not the whole of his long career (which also included directing Catch-22 and Carnal Knowledge, The Birdcage and Silkwood, as well as the TV adaptation of Angels In America), but it may account for some of the sheer variability of it. There are loose themes of alienation and semi-alienation that recur, but they're mixed with this mischievous and delightful appreciation of absurdity that leads to that sniffling performance as the grieving funeral customer in a piece that gives most of the good lines to May.

One of the best things you can say about a long career is that there's no one through-line that can explain both that Grief Lady sketch and directing Silkwood. But stepping back from the long arc of Nichols' work does create the sense that people who instinctively understand comedy and working in teams may be better-suited than most to tackle even projects not calling directly on those skills.

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who was found guilty of conspiracy to hack personal voice mails, was released today after serving less than five months of his 18-month sentence.

British news reports say that as a condition of early release, Coulson, 46, will have to wear an electronic tag for the remainder of his sentence.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice quoted by The Guardian said: "Public protection is our first priority. Only prisoners who pass a strict risk assessment can be released on HDC. Offenders on HDC are subject to strict licence conditions and can be recalled to prison if they breach them."

HDC refers to home detention curfew.

As we've previously told you, the phone hacking scandal broke in 2010, revealing that the now-defunct News of the World tabloid had hacked the voice mails of more than 1,000 people, including members of the British royal family.

The revelations forced Coulson to resign as Prime Minister David Cameron's communications director. At the subsequent trial, Coulson was found guilty while his former boss, Rebekah Brooks, was cleared.

Andy Coulson

Rebekah Brooks

U.K. hacking scandal

Business groups have long been active players in the nation's immigration debate. They represent employers who need to recruit workers, after all — employers who are sometimes investigated, even prosecuted, for hiring workers who are not approved to work in the U.S. legally.

Many big employers have been pushing for reforms that would allow them to keep more science and technology workers and skilled laborers in the country. But the executive action President Obama announced Thursday leaves out much of what the business lobby has been advocating for.

Obama's announcement will allow more undocumented immigrants with U.S.-born children to apply for work permits, among other things. But the policies will not help businesses with their key immigration concerns, says Matt Sonnesyn, a senior director at the Business Roundtable, which represents large businesses.

"Last night's actions do help for those [workers] who are already here — to have some security that they're going to remain and continue working," he says. "But they don't really address how we're going to attract and retain those workers from around the world."

Related NPR Stories

The Two-Way

A Closer Look At Obama's Immigration Plan: What's In It, Who's Affected

The Two-Way

7 Questions About The President's Immigration Plan Answered

Farmers Hoped For Guest Worker Program In Obama's Immigration Order

He notes the president did extend a program giving high-skilled students the ability to work while applying for a visa. And there is some added flexibility for those who already have work visas to move between jobs.

But Sonnesyn says the action does not increase the total number of visas available — either to high- or low-skilled temporary workers. That is a big blow to business groups, especially as the U.S. economy recovers. Many big employers want to recruit more science and technology workers, as well as skilled laborers in fields like manufacturing and construction.

But that's also not a surprise, Sonnesyn says. The president could only act on enforcement — things like border control and deportation of criminals — not on legislation.

"The president just didn't have the authority to go to the core of what we see as important for growing the economy over time," Sonnesyn says.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was an economist in the George W. Bush administration and is now president of the policy analysis group American Action Forum, says he thinks "the business groups are going to be, by and large, disappointed. There wasn't really much in there for them."

Many business groups, including the National Federation of Independent Business and National Association of Manufacturers, support a national system that allows employers to check whether someone is permitted to work legally.

That system, known as E-Verify, would reduce an employers' legal liability if they hire someone with falsified documents. E-Verify received no mention in Obama's address.

Holtz-Eakin says what might be surprising, given the partisan rhetoric around immigration, is how little daylight there is between the president's policy position and that of most Republicans and the business community. "There's much less division than people realize," Holtz-Eakin says.

The president supports the immigration bill that passed the Senate more than a year ago. The business community also supports that legislation, but the Republican leadership in the House has not brought it up for a vote.

"There's no disagreement on the policy. The issue is 100 percent politics," Holtz-Eakin says. "And the sad reality is, the president pushed the politics in the wrong direction last night."

That's certainly the position of some Republicans in leadership, who are angry the president acted unilaterally.

Robert Litan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, says the president "could've done all this quietly, without making any announcement whatsoever."

But he didn't. Instead, Litan says, Obama chose a high-stakes political gamble that could pay off, if Republicans in Congress take up the president's challenge and pass immigration legislation.

In any event, Litan says, it's hard to know what the ultimate business implications of Thursday night's actions are.

"The bottom line is, the business community, like everybody else, is waiting to see what the next move is going to be in Congress — whether there's going to be a legal challenge and so forth," Litan says.

"And at the end of the day," he adds, "whatever the president can do can only last for two years. The next president could decide to undo the whole thing."

Immigration

Business groups have long been active players in the nation's immigration debate. They represent employers who need to recruit workers, after all — employers who are sometimes investigated, even prosecuted, for hiring workers who are not approved to work in the U.S. legally.

Many big employers have been pushing for reforms that would allow them to keep more science and technology workers and skilled laborers in the country. But the executive action President Obama announced Thursday leaves out much of what the business lobby has been advocating for.

Obama's announcement will allow more undocumented immigrants with U.S.-born children to apply for work permits, among other things. But the policies will not help businesses with their key immigration concerns, says Matt Sonnesyn, a senior director at the Business Roundtable, which represents large businesses.

"Last night's actions do help for those [workers] who are already here — to have some security that they're going to remain and continue working," he says. "But they don't really address how we're going to attract and retain those workers from around the world."

Related NPR Stories

The Two-Way

A Closer Look At Obama's Immigration Plan: What's In It, Who's Affected

The Two-Way

7 Questions About The President's Immigration Plan Answered

Farmers Hoped For Guest Worker Program In Obama's Immigration Order

He notes the president did extend a program giving high-skilled students the ability to work while applying for a visa. And there is some added flexibility for those who already have work visas to move between jobs.

But Sonnesyn says the action does not increase the total number of visas available — either to high- or low-skilled temporary workers. That is a big blow to business groups, especially as the U.S. economy recovers. Many big employers want to recruit more science and technology workers, as well as skilled laborers in fields like manufacturing and construction.

But that's also not a surprise, Sonnesyn says. The president could only act on enforcement — things like border control and deportation of criminals — not on legislation.

"The president just didn't have the authority to go to the core of what we see as important for growing the economy over time," Sonnesyn says.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who was an economist in the George W. Bush administration and is now president of the policy analysis group American Action Forum, says he thinks "the business groups are going to be, by and large, disappointed. There wasn't really much in there for them."

Many business groups, including the National Federation of Independent Business and National Association of Manufacturers, support a national system that allows employers to check whether someone is permitted to work legally.

That system, known as E-Verify, would reduce an employers' legal liability if they hire someone with falsified documents. E-Verify received no mention in Obama's address.

Holtz-Eakin says what might be surprising, given the partisan rhetoric around immigration, is how little daylight there is between the president's policy position and that of most Republicans and the business community. "There's much less division than people realize," Holtz-Eakin says.

The president supports the immigration bill that passed the Senate more than a year ago. The business community also supports that legislation, but the Republican leadership in the House has not brought it up for a vote.

"There's no disagreement on the policy. The issue is 100 percent politics," Holtz-Eakin says. "And the sad reality is, the president pushed the politics in the wrong direction last night."

That's certainly the position of some Republicans in leadership, who are angry the president acted unilaterally.

Robert Litan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, says the president "could've done all this quietly, without making any announcement whatsoever."

But he didn't. Instead, Litan says, Obama chose a high-stakes political gamble that could pay off, if Republicans in Congress take up the president's challenge and pass immigration legislation.

In any event, Litan says, it's hard to know what the ultimate business implications of Thursday night's actions are.

"The bottom line is, the business community, like everybody else, is waiting to see what the next move is going to be in Congress — whether there's going to be a legal challenge and so forth," Litan says.

"And at the end of the day," he adds, "whatever the president can do can only last for two years. The next president could decide to undo the whole thing."

Immigration