Comedy

Nickel and Dimed reads at times like a satire, and there are many instances of material played for laughs: the absurd personality tests, the mind-numbing Maids training videos, the Wal-Mart orientation session, the misleadingly rosy advertisements for barely inhabitable motel rooms. Of course, Ehrenreich's comedy is always tinged with sadness; the jokes take aim at the folly of a society that can so neglect its least well-off citizens.