Office Space Review
by Matt Prigge (chandlerb AT geocities DOT com)March 23rd, 1999
OFFICE SPACE (1999)
A Film Review by Ted Prigge
Copyright 1999 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: Mike Judge
Starring: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Ajay Naidu, David Herman, Gary Cole, Stephen Root, Richard Riehle, Diedrich Bader, John C. McGinley, Paul Wilson, Todd Duffey
Of course I agree and like everything that 'Office Space' stands for. I have a job, and while it may not be a desk job like the one in this movie, it's still a station for purgatory on earth. And I fear the day when I have to give up my dreams of whatever it is I dream of and settle for a boring, spirit crushing desk job, like the one the characters in this film have. They work every day, sometimes even weekends, at a computer plant and their job is to prepare for Y2K. As written and directed by Mike Judge ('Beevis and Butthead,' 'King of the Hill'), it's a cartoonish hellhole of orwellian and kafkaesque proportions. The lead character (Ron Livingston, from 'Swingers') is basically a mutation of the Job character from the bible, complaining to a hypnotherapist that, 'Since I started working, every single day has been worse than the day before, so that every day you see me is the worst day of my life.'
On his way to work, he gets stuck in a mind-blowing traffic jam, and every time he successfully gets into the moving lane, the lane stops moving, and the lane he was just in starts moving miraculously. He glances out of his blind spot and notices the old man with a walker, moving at a snail's pace, is making more locational progress than he is. When he gets to work, people notice he's gloomy and say he's 'come down with a case of the "Mondays."' Then his main boss (Gary Cole) shows up at his cubicle and mentions that he didn't put the cover sheet on his latest TPS report. A couple seconds later, another boss comes up to him and says the same thing. Then again. Then again. Meanwhile, a high-pitched receptionist's voice repeats the same annoying mantra to caller after caller after caller. Work is hell; a desk job is worse.
There are many hilarious things about 'Office Space,' and all of them have to do with the hellishness of work and the way they make the characters feel. And it only helps that Judge, in his own right, is an exceptional satirist, not only in terms of the lowest-of-the-low-ness he brought to 'Beevis and Butthead,' but also to his 'Milton' shorts that were shown on 'Saturday Night Live' way back when. 'Office Space' is basically the live-action materialization of those shorts, complete with the materialization of the Milton character (played brilliantly by Stephen Root). Milton, an overweight, perpetually sweating lisper works in a tiny cubicle, with his radio and stapler as his only refuges, and is always either being told to relocate his cubicle or to allow more and more cardboard boxes to be stored there, crowding him in. Just about anything Milton does in this film is just about laugh-out-loud hilarious, not the least being the scene where the boss has his birthday party and is passing out cake while Milton is furiously worrying if there's enough pieces or not.
In fact, there's so much potential comedy here that it's a damn shame that it had to succumb to the silliest of Hollywood Movie Standards and give itself an actual plot, and then succumb to the second silliest Standard and give itself a go-nowhere romantic subplot involving the main character and a 'Friends' cast member. See, a movie these days, especially one that's main strong point is its satire, doesn't feel like it can get by on just it's on random comic insights, and the result is that a film like this often becomes subject to a balancing beam of judgment, concerning the ratio of great, funny moments to the thinness and annoyance of the plot that it felt it had to add. In fact, for a lot of this film, I was in mild suspense, wondering how this film would turn out in regard to that; it has a ton of funny, tell-your-friends-and-family moments, but on the other hand, it has that distracting plot that, self-depricative or not, still gets in the way of potential jokes. The actual storyline concerns our hero, Peter, and his two office buds, Samir (Ajay Naidu, from 'SubUrbia') and Michael Bolton (David Herman)...and no, not that Michael Bolton, as we're told (at least it leads up to one really funny joke, involving John C. McGinley), and their decision to try and rip off the company over the course of a couple years by using a program designed by Bolton that was in fact ripped off of a job pulled off unsuccessfully in the 70s (and, as they note, in 'Superman III').
There's another plot going on at the same time, though, featuring how Peter goes to a hypnotherapist who puts him in a positive trance and then dies before he can bring him out of it. Pretty soon, Peter is sleeping in for days on end, ignoring his boss, knocking down part of his cubicle so he can see outside the window, and even gutting fish at his desk. And he's also becoming acquainted with an attractive waitress (Jennifer Aniston) at the local T.G.I. Fridays-esque establishment near his office, who is stressed out by her own job, which requires her to wear a minimum of 15 'flairs.' She does, but her boss wants more personality out of her, and points out that Brian, another waiter has 37 'flairs,' and a heck of a smile to boot. Basically, this film has lots of really superb moments, and a great philosophy about work that would make for an otherwise recommendable film. Alas, it's not to be. The main plot, about the virus, and the romance interfere too much with and seem to detract from the overall orwellian/kafkaesque feel that this film nails in its opening ten minutes. Sure, Stephen Root is a guaranteed riot, and Gary Cole (who with this and 'A Simple Plan' is becoming a favorite supporting player of mine) is a hoot as the tiresome boss, who opens every single sentence with a prolonged 'Yeeeaaaahhhh...." only to ignore anything anyone else says.
But the rest of it is hit-and-miss. Livingston is likable in the lead, but he never pushes the envelope far enough (he basically needs more material to work with), and the same goes for Naidu and Herman, who both do the best with what they're given. As usual, it's the supporting guys who have to work the hardest, to cover up for the amount of laughs the plot and subplots take away from the overall effect of the film. But even they aren't given a whole lot to work with, and the entire feel I had coming out of the film was of dire unsatisfaction. I knew there were lots and lots of great moments that I was still giggling about, but there are too many missed opportunities and the main plot just ain't funny enough. What I did like, though, was the change in Peter from 'this blows' to 'who cares?' and what it gets him into. Basically, the office is being visited by efficiency experts (McGinley and Paul Williams), a disguised word for those who give the bosses more money by trimming the fat off the office. Going through interviews, most people kiss up, but nonchalant Peter tells them he actually does work for a mere 15 minutes a week, and when questioned about the amount of work he's missed, he gleefully states 'Well, I wouldn't say I've been missing it.' They like his attitude, and instead of firing him, as his boss suggests, they state he should be promoted so he can have a challenge. Okay, good idea. This is stuff comedy, cartoonish as this is, is made for. But even when it gets to Peter's promotion, it still falls back on the dreaded virus plot, which is more of an excuse-for-a-plot than an actual plot.
Suggestions for the film: 1) drop the Aniston romance or at least modify so it either goes somewhere or is the least bit interesting, because as such, it isn't; 2) drop the virus stuff altogether - just not that funny; 3) maybe, just maybe, go with the stuff about the promotion, and make it more satirical and even funnier - expand expand expand; 4) up the orwellian and kafkaesque tones <i>a lot</i> - apart from the beginning stuff and a couple spots throughout, there's just not enough of it; and 5) maybe just ditch any sense of a plot and make it an episodic, plotless look into office life, exposing the horrors and thus the humor in a more productive and satisfying manner. Number 5 is the most feared of all because not only does this mean the screenwriter(s) has/have to come up with more jokes, it means snobbish critics will pan it for not having a plot. Let me state this loud and clear: you do not need a plot to make a good film. I just saw a Truffaut film called 'Small Change,' which is just a great flick, that dealt with the lives of children in school and out. It was plotless, save for a bit at the end about a maltreated boy, but its lack of a plot allowed it to be more open to insight, and to be able to concentrate more on mannerisms and create individual sequences which together made up a complete portrait. Now, I'm not suggesting in any way that a film like 'Office Space' should be like a 70s French art house film; I'm merely implying that this kind of structure would actually benefit a film like this. Because, as such, it's just not at all satisfying, even if it does have its head in the right place and comes with a powerhouse of great jokes. Just not amusing enough.
MY RATING (out of 4): **1/2
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