The Final Copy of Ilon Specht

From two-time Oscar® winner Ben Proudfoot comes THE FINAL COPY OF ILON SPECHT, an intimate deathbed account of the unsung advertising genius who coined L'Oréal's iconic "Because I'm Worth It" slogan in 1973, a four word feminist manifesto that, against all odds, changed advertising forever.

Mar 27, 2025 - 16:09

Ben Proudfoot has made the audacious gamble of building his career on short film production, and it’s hard to argue with his success – two Oscar wins, and a flourishing company, Breakwater Studios, that is rapidly expanding. However, making a living with shorts requires creativity, and his prolific output has been supported from the start by diverse partnerships. These included legacy media companies like NyTimes and LA Times, Hollywood outlets like Searchlight Pictures, and, most recently, selling a film to Netflix.

But shorts do not typically strike bidding wars, and without multiple windows to sell a film like features can, there are limited revenue opportunities. So, who spends big money on art that doesn’t present a clear and accounted-for return? A major story of 2025 that I hope to dive deeper into is the comeback of Branded Content, and The Final Copy of Ilon Specht, Proudfoot’s latest directorial effort in collaboration with beauty giant L’Oreal, is a terrific example – an inspired work that melds storytelling and marketing in a seamless and crowd-pleasing way, and which is completely authentic to its director’s artistic voice.

The film burnishes the legacy of Ilon Specht, a Manhattan adwoman who once competed in the casually misogynistic era of Mad Men. Now elderly and in poor health, Proudfoot visits with the retiree and her caretaker daughter-in-law in an immaculate uptown apartment to trace personal histories, sketch out a scene of the male-dominated advertising industry of the time, and recreate the context behind Specht’s crowning professional achievement – the coining of L’Oreal’s famous tagline, one of the most enduring and revolutionary pieces of copy in the industry’s history.

Now, working with brands is not new for Proudfoot – the Breakwater website has its own, lengthy section for brand films, and, obviously, many filmmakers support themselves via commercial work. While Proudfoot has never done a traditional commercial to my knowledge, across projects for companies like YouTube, Amazon, Unity, and others, his brand films have contained clear signatures of his style, and yet have often felt like content for brands rather than branded content. The distinction may feel forced, and sheer profusion of the word “content” throughout this paragraph is liable to turn some stomachs. But, this short is, to me, the first branded film from Proudfoot that feels utterly a piece with his original work – the kind of films that get the Obamas to sign on as Executive Producers or win golden statuettes.

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Indeed, several minutes into my initial viewing, I wondered if I was watching Proudfoot’s best film yet. Specht is a marvelous character – crotchety but sympathetic, with a quick wit and an ad professional’s self-assuredness. Proudfoot has a knack for capturing dramatic or funny moments, and Specht is game to provide. One such moment achieves both, and comes in the film’s opening sequence as Specht, alternating between labored breaths, recites the commercial that cemented her legend, but breaks off before finishing. “I wish I had more time,” she gasps out. Ben chimes in, off-camera, asking her what she means. “I’m dying! I’m croaking!” she retorts indignantly.

With the drama set, you know some of what to expect – snappy b-roll montages, hi-quality archival materials, interrotron talking head interviews – there is a house-style to a Breakwater production. Last year’s awards contender, Motorcycle Mary, swapped team member Haley Watson into the director’s chair for the first time, but the result was almost indistinguishable from the rest of the catalog. At one point in time I bumped against this reliance on formula, but I’ve made my peace with it. First, it’s a form of quality control, and it’s naive to both praise Proudfoot for cracking the code on sustainable creative short film production while demanding each film to be highly individuated. Second, the formula is just so good! My admiration deepens with each new entry and the elegance and fine-tuned nature of the execution deserves a poptimist-style appraisal.

Also, some things cannot be templatized. The production makes the genius decision to leave Specht and rely on her daughter-in-law, Alison Case, to provide much of context for Specht’s early career and this decision elevates the film significantly. A key aim of the film is to establish the L’Oreal slogan as a feminist touchstone, and while I often enjoy these montages of social proof within docs where famous people are brought in to attest to the importance or legendary status of the subject, in The Final Copy of Ilon Specht I thought this sequence was one of the weaker aspects of the film. Additionally, the involvement of L’Oreal directly in the project makes for an even taller bar to clear. Without spoilers, Case’s testimony provides the necessary ballast to accomplish this – it is a splendid parallel story that possesses incredible synchronicity to the main theme, providing a necessary micro counterpoint to the fuzzy and amorphous macro claim of the brand message. It is the emotional heart of the film and validates Ilon as an icon in a personal way, transforming ”Because I’m worth it” from legendary copy into a value that Specht personified in life. There are multiple ways to leave a legacy, and Proudfoot, in this lovely branded profile doc, honors both the slogan and the woman to great effect.