If you’ve ever lived in the workaday white collar world or fear doing so, you’ll find a lot that’s quite familiar in “Office Space.”
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Years before I ever entered corporate America, I was jaded to the bureaucratic structure by a fine film called "Office Space." At once a clever satire and a silly comedy, "Office Space" manages to hit all the right buttons that create a decent, if sometimes slow, comedy and leaves behind some gems that have permeated our culture.
"Office Space" is Peter´s story. Peter (Ron Livingston) is your average 9-5 corporate drone; he often shows up late, takes long coffee breaks, and tries to bag out early on Fridays. His work ethic is based solely on his need to acquire enough money to live a comfortable life and not any sense of dedication to his job or the product he creates. It´s the current American dream (success without effort) personified.
While attending relationship counseling with his girlfriend, Peter undergoes hypnosis to relieve the tensions that plague his life and romantic relations. While in a state of extreme relaxation and under a command to stop stressing out, the hypnotist dies, leaving Peter in a nihilistic attitude that doesn´t jive well with corporate America. Instead of saying what others want to hear, Peter opts to say what is really on his mind. He blows off his boss´s command that he work on Saturday, ignores his girlfriend, and tells a group of consultants exactly what he thinks of his job. Which only gets him promoted. If only it were so easy.
During his meteoric rise to the top, Peter finally gets the nerve to ask out the cute waitress who works at the nearby "Crazy-Crap-on-the-Walls Diner" (TM Pending). Joanna (Jennifer Anniston) is just as frustrated by the workaday world of waitressing as Peter is in the corporate structure. The film gives us a few glimpses into the "dark side" of forced happiness in food service… though never addressing the most humiliating aspect; birthday songs.
Along the path to complete submission to nihilism, Peter concocts a wild plan (straight out of "Superman III") to wipe out his money troubles so he can relax on the beach and never deal with corporate hassles again. Of course it goes wildly awry (as maniacal plans from nihilists tend to do), causing a crisis of conscious for the film´s protagonists (not out of a sense of morality as much as a fear of federal prison) and a conclusion that, quite literally, brings down the corporate structure.
As with any good comedy, the supporting cast is arrayed with colorful and ingenious-yet-familiar characters. Michael Bolton (David Herman) is an angry man with an unfortunate name. His identity is amorphous because he seems to fear exposing himself as anything but a mild white male stereotype. Anjay Naidu plays Samir, a typical Indian immigrant who happens to be skilled at computers. His name is unpronounceable to his white bosses and he, like Bolton, reacts negatively to stereotyping.
Tom (Richard Riehle) is a worry-wart. Much like the "Dilbert" character Wally, Tom has managed to go through life without doing any actual work. He´s skated by on bureaucratic loopholes and nobody noticing. Stephen Root inhabits (and I mean that literally) the character of Milton. Milton was fired years ago but nobody bothered to tell him, and because of some glitch, he continues to get a paycheck. Obsessed with his red stapler, Milton mutters obscene threats at anyone who would usurp his position. At once fascinating and difficult to observe, Milton is a fascinating character. The crowned jewel of "Office Space" has to be Lumbergh (Gary Cole). As slimy as any boss I´ve seen, Cole creates a completely unlikable character that lacks basic redeeming social features. He´s not maliciously bad, just completely oblivious. Any one of these characters, though limited in scope and lacking any sense of complexity, could easily inhabit any American office.
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[release]16917[/release]