Product: Office Space (1999)
Rating: 5.0
My Dream of Doing Nothing
It's very abnormal for a movie made by Mike Judge with Jennifer Aniston as a co-star to be so profound, but this movie manages to define and brilliantly satirize day to day life for all of us who don't really get any satisfaction from our work. From buzzword-dropping tech yuppies, to waitresses, to construction workers, Office Space captures the dull, clock-watching doldrums of work for millions of us.The movie portrays Peter, a software engineer who couldn't care less about his job (it takes place in 1999 and he's updating bank software for Y-2k) and considers himself a wimp because he always just takes things-from his cheating girlfriend coercing him into skipping poker night to his condescending jerk of a boss asking him to "go ahead and come in on Sunday too". He undergoes "occupational hypnotherapy" to help him cope with work, and in a twist of events, Peter is permanently caught in a trance in which he loses all inhibitions about his job-and everything else. This is where the movie begins to express its brilliance in satire. Peter is in a trance, but this "altered state" really makes him just be himself and to be assertive instead of just conforming and caving in. He soon abondons his Kafka-esque existence and stops going to work, dumps his nagging b**tch of a girlfriend, and gets the courage to ask out a disgruntled waitress (Aniston). Peter inspires everyone around him through his own form of civil disobedience-skipping work, dissing his corporate douche of a boss Lumburg (yeaaaahh...that'd be greaeet), and gets promoted for it, while his conforming buddies lose their jobs in a downsize. They also come up with a scheme to rip off the company which goes wrong-but the plot of this film is rather arbitrary. The great thing about the film is that it sums up our lives for millions of people who crank out their 8 hour days and dread the next, living for the weekend and hoping they don't have to work extra. It captures all characters from the various workplaces, from the condescendingp buzz-word uttering corporate boss, to the patronizing restaurant manager, to the overly enthusiastic sleazy waiter, the office gossip, the weird guy, and the sugary sweet cheery girl who says things like "a case of the Mondays", the movie has them all.Throughout the film, comic relief is offered by Peter's mullet-haired, beer drinkin' construction worker of a neighbor, who seems to be the only person in the movie who really has things figured out. He loves his life, because he gets to work outside and feels no real obligation to his "career". This is another brilliant satirical point of the movie-the one character who is happy with his life is the one that most white collar people are quick to ridicule-the "uneducated manual laborer". Lawrence is absolutely hillarious and makes the movie for me. "Hey Peter man! Check out channel 9, it's the breast exam! Whhoo hooo!"In the end, Peter realizes that his dreams in life have absolutely nothing to do with what he does for a job, or what his "social status" is. As far as work goes-he dreams of doing nothing (or as close to it as he can so long as the bills get paid). He ends up working with Lawrence and hitching up with Aniston-and a happy man.In America too many people are obsessed with their careers, their houses, their cars, and all the other crap that really doesn't matter if you have a miserable existence. Office Space reminds us that there is an alternative-and that is what makes it so great.