Written by: Mike Judge
Starring: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Stephen Root, Gary Cole, John C. McGinley
Rating: [3.5/5]
Being stuck in a job that does not fulfill any particular void in life in a meaningful manner can make for a miserable experience. It becomes solely a means to ensure you can pay the bills. Add on the trouble of commutes and micromanaging bosses, and it lays the groundwork or some deep-seated resentment to ferment in the minds of employees. This element of the malaise, Office Space captures so well, and it’s unfortunate that it still can feel so relevant.
Completely unhappy with his life at the moment, Peter (Ron Livingston) attends a session with a hypnotherapist whose trance allows him to view life completely differently. Going into work, he completely ignores all of the conventions of the workplace, daring the upper management to fire him. This only becomes more absurd when consultants come in and are actually impressed by his behavior and recommend him receiving a promotion.
Carrying a lasting legacy for so long now, Office Space has stood as the defining film about the dread workplace culture, particularly in America. It demonstrates everything that would make everyone hate the idea of working in a stuffy office, in a cubicle, and with nothing but fluorescent lighting all around. A personal hell for some, and the way the film captures this horror explains why it maintains this nostalgia. It pinches a nerve inside everyone as it captures everything they fear.
This appears not only in the workplace culture but also in how it defines each individual as a number and not someone who clocks in every day and works to raise the value of the company. That’s what makes the consultants enter the space and look for efficiencies, which is code for laying people off for the good of ownership and shareholder value. It demonstrates a brazen reality in front of many people where the worker is now more than ever dispensable, they no longer give you a pension, and there is a distinct lack of baseline respect. This is what sets off Petet and his co-workers, as they have had enough and want to do something about it.
Everything happening within the office exhibits the best this film has to offer, but it does lose some of its luster when it begins to expand beyond what transpires at Initech. Namely, the love life of Peter and the revenge plot undertaken to get back at Initech. While Jennifer Aniston makes for a lovely addition to this cast, everything involving her character in relation to Peter feels quite undercooked and therefore a surplus to the requirements of this story to use office speak. She does demonstrate how even in her workplace she has to deal with nonsense from her supervisor, such as something as arbitrary as the number of pins she puts on her uniform to express herself. This ridiculousness extends beyond the white-collar jobs, as we all know. Similarly, when looking at the plot by the enraged employees of Initech, it sends them down a route where their revenge involves injecting the company with a virus, which generally is not that interesting.
Therefore, we have a film that has a pitch-perfect first half and a lackluster second. However, that first half works so spectacularly well in defining and poking fun at something everyday people experience. It must make those who need to work out in the elements or various blue-collar jobs laugh to think this displays some sort of oppression, but even they must admit that being able to get some fresh air throughout the workday is better than breathing in that dry air under the bland conditions all day.
Still rightfully viewed as the definitive workplace satire comedy, Office Space has all of the quotes and the memes that have flooded the internet for some time now. Its description of the workplace horrors rings true, and things are even somewhat worse now, where people yearn for the ability to have their own cubicle now that they have these shared workspaces. I cannot imagine having to deal with that setup. However, the film serves as both an examination of this culture and a follow-up to the aggravated employees who have had enough and want their piece of long-awaited revenge.
