Product: Office Space (1999)
Rating: 5.0
The truth about office life...
Today we like to think of the modern-day office environment as the embodiment of all that is soulless about the corporate world. But in truth, the cubicle was designed to actually make life better for the average worker. It was designed to give them privacy and some degree of independence, as opposed to the previous custom of having rows and rows of desk next to each other in orderly fashion. So what went wrong?"Office Space" is a light comedy, but it gives a lot of answers to the question of why the modern corporate office has become such an alienating place. It is because everyone is in their own world. We see it in the opening scene, even while the characters are driving to work in their cars. They each have their own way of dealing with traffic. They arrive at work already alienated. Furthermore, the cast of quirky characters in the film suggests that each person is in their own world: Milton sits in his cubicle whining about his stapler, Mike Bolton sits around wondering how to bring down the company, Peter worries about avoiding his boss, Drew probably thinks up elaborate sexual fantasies, etc.In other words, even though we might like to think of the modern office as being an annoying place where we have to deal with annoying people, I think "Office Space" suggests that the real problem is that we are so alienated from each other in the office. (Check out the hilarious scene where Peter is talking on the phone to somebody, and the camera pans over to reveal that it's Milton, in the cubicle next to him.) This kind of alienation increases the impersonal nature of the place and heightens the paranoia -- which is really what "Office Space" is about.