Movie Monday: Office Space

Oh yeah, Mike Judge's first film...

Blake was a Film Minor in college. His love of film was started by his parents and exposure to the multitude of cinema helped fuel his love of the medium. In an attempt to do his part in an internet packed with paid reviews and movie review bombing, Blake will drop a movie review the 1st and 3rd Mondays of each month with an earnest take to inform his subscribers if they should watch what he’s watched.

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Office Space was a cult classic that shone a light on how ridiculous your coworkers are no matter where you work. It also shone a light on day-to-day life for office work employees. While the world has changed since 1999 (tech advances, working from home, inflation, blah blah blah) this film still appropriately points at the weirdness of working with people before The Office became a huge hit. But is it worth watching today? Read on and find out!

Synopsis

Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) is an employee with software company Initech. Being unhappy with his job, his girlfriend has him sit with an occupational therapist who dies before he can snap Peter out of a state of relaxation that borders on achieving nirvana. Peter then lives his life without fear of losing his job, and recruits co-workers Michal (David Herman) and Samir (Ajay Naidu) to rip off the company as a result of standard operating procedure that ignores the little guy. We also meet Peter’s boss Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole) and his love interest Joanna (Jennifer Aniston) and see how Peter’s life changes thanks to his decisions with no fear of repercussions.

Where it shines

This movie shines with it’s characters. Bill Lumbergh is the boss who seems to not DO anything but is always around to bother you about some mindless work thing. There’s someone like Milton in every job I’ve ever worked. Even the conversation Joanna has with her boss at Chotchkie’s about what counts as enough flair sticks out as satirical but real enough to be taken from an actual restaurant. It also has a great soundtrack with an emphasize on heavy rap to counter with the beige and bland office setting.

What it doesn’t shine as much

It might date itself a bit, which isn’t really the fault of the movie. Thanks to advances in technology and just world events in general it may be harder to empathize with Peter. Covid alone makes the already low stakes of “I don’t like my job.” even lower as opposed to stressing employee health and safety.

But that’s not what Office Space is about. It takes on the the trivialties of working life and how bland and low stakes they actually are.

Who Will Like it

Anyone who has worked, no matter if it was an office job or restaurant or frankly anywhere with co-workers my mother would describe as “characters”. The writing is sharp and the movie is packed with things happening. At 90 minutes you get more plot and people doing things and making desicions than some two hour movies made today.

Watch or Skip?

Absolutely watch it. Some of the references are a bit dated, but the sharp joke writing, the characters/cariciatures, and journey of the protagnist are well worth looking past floppy discs and answering machines.

If you enjoy trivia with your review, Steven Root plays Milton, a mumbling put upon office worker that is pushed to the brink by Lumbergh. Milton is actually a character Mike Judge created and animated long before he ever wrote office space. You can watch the Milton shorts by clicking this hyperlink!