Product: Office Space (1999)
Rating: 5.0
Laughing at Ourselves
There are a lot of funny movies out there, but not many can be said to have so perfectly skewered their subject that they become archetypes. "Office Space" fits this latter category, doing for the modern, post-1980 workplace what "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" did for the Arthurian legend. That is to say, "Office Space" has become a part of our common culture, with shared concepts like "pieces of flair" and "Is this good for the COMPANY?" being common to the experience not only of cubicle slaves but all of us.Further, "Office Space", despite its outrageous plot, is just close enough to the truth of modern corporate America to hit home. Companies do promote incompetents and lay off their most skilled workers, all in the name of short-term quarterly profits. They do treat their employees like drones while rewarding upper management for cheating shareholders. To see this all turned against them goes a long way in explaining the success of "Office Space." It's a classic.