When speaking about the movie Office Space, there are plenty of memorable one-liners that come to mind. I just happened to turn it on my lazy Monday afternoon and one of the first references of flair comes up, I believe the part where Jennifer Aniston’s character Joanna explains flair to the main character, Peter Gibbons, played by Ron Livingston.
Anyway, if you haven’t figured it out, this week’s column is dedicated to the 1999 cult hit which hits close to home to a lot of people.
I mean, if given the option, how many of us would actually choose to work if we really didn’t have to?
Silly society and its social norms!
Office Space hit theaters in February 1999. Its opening weekend took in a little more than $4 million and close to $11 million in North America during its time on the big screen. Very modest numbers but its overall popularity would skyrocket once out on VHS, DVD and getting a run on TV on Comedy Central and the premium channels.
Now, if you haven’t seen Office Space, I highly recommend that you do as soon as possible. For whatever reason I held out on watching it until about a year ago exactly ever since I have been questioning what took me so long.
The movie tells the story of a group of workers in a typical software company during the 1990s. It was written and directed by Mike Judge, the brains behind Beavis & Butthead and King of the Hill among other projects. The main character, Peter Gibbons, is a miserable programmer at Initech, a software company in Anytown, U.S.A. His love interest is Joanna, who is a waitress at Chotchkie’s, which is basically a parody of T.G.I. Friday’s in Anytown, U.S.A.
Peter is going through a tough time when the movie begins, his girlfriend is cheating on him and she suggests they go to a hypnotherapist. Peter sees him, Dr. Swanson, who hypnotizes him, putting him in a state of ecstasy. Before Peter is snapped out of his trance, Dr. Swanson dies, and he stays out of it for a few days, so much so that he ignores calls from his girlfriend, Anne, and his boss and his main antagonist Bill Lumbergh, Initech’s vice president, played by the typically brilliant Gary Cole.
Peter was supposed to come into the office on a Saturday but he doesn’t, and he begins to turn his life around by going into Chotchkie’s to ask out Joanna completely out of the blue. All of this happens while Initech brings in “The Bobs”, two consultants whose mission is to help with the company’s plan to downsize. They go through an interview process to basically ask each employee why they’re relevant. “The Bobs” are pretty douchey throughout the process.
One example is they “fix a glitch” by taking an employee named Milton (an amazing Stephen Root) off payroll, not really firing him (he technically was fired years back but was still getting paid, which was the glitch.) and letting it sort itself out. So, one would think they would get rid of Peter once he came back, but that would not turn out to be the case.
Our hero is blunt and tells it like it is. He doesn’t really know much about what he does and why it matters. He tells efficiency consultants “The Bobs” that he has eight bosses, making life in the office that much more miserable. “The Bobs” appreciate his honesty and even offer him a promotion. Problem is, they also say they’re going to fire two of his best friends at work, Samir Nagheenanajar and Michael Bolton (who hates the fact that he shares the name with the singer).
So the three put their heads together and come up with a scheme to stick it to Initech by secretly stealing money. In a legendary scene they also gain revenge on a laser printer in a field, Goodfellas style, as “Die, Mothertruckers, Die,” by the Geto Boys plays (Hope it’s obvious that I’m using ‘truckers’ in place of a legitimately profane word.)
Watching this movie more and more, as it has been on TV a lot recently, has me really thinking of a deeper meaning than just the story of the quirks of working in an office and the conflict between pompous boss and overworked, underappreciated employee. In my opinion it’s an example of trying to answer the age-old question of the meaning of life. Here are a few Peter Gibbons quotes to think about.
“We don’t have a lot of time on this earth. We weren’t meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day, filling out useless forms and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements.”
“I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be.”
Peter was so miserable at Initech, that and his cheating girlfriend, made him lose his will to experience life and figure it all out. His awakening and the adventures that follow and the people he experiences them with, are what life really should be about.
It’s not about doing a T.P.S report, or caring what Bill Lumbergh, “The Bobs” or any one of your eight bosses think of you. It’s not about being ignored at an office birthday celebration where you don’t get a piece of cake. It’s not about having 37 pieces of flair instead of the minimum of 15.
Can anyone in their right mind explain how 22 more pieces, (including, of course, a “We’re not in Kansas anymore” button) will improve the taste of a burger and fries in a tacky chain restaurant?
Life beyond the “office space” is what life is all about…that and red staplers.
Frankie?
Yeeee-ahhhh….The embezzlement plot is one good example of why I think this movie is brilliant. It’s been done in other films, but the execution here is pretty golden. First off, the film acknowledges that the scheme, where the guys introduce a worm into the payroll system that embezzles fractions of cents from the company regularly, is ganked from Superman III of all movies. (You know, it wasn’t a bad plan then either.) Then Judge throws in a wrench: the worm works too well and pulls a much more noticeable amount from the Initech coffers. The guys are then thrown into chaos trying to figure out how to successfully launder the money without getting caught. There are some amazing bits in there, like Orlando Jones as a guy they take to be a crackhead whom they grill on money laundering, and the “pound me in the ass” prison scene, where Peter imagines what it would be like.
As increasingly riotous as things get, Mike Judge always remembers to keep his characters and their kind of mundane, crappy world in the foreground. Peter’s life before his hypnosis revolves around his job and his attempts to fit what his girlfriend wants for them. Once he stops caring about work, his life opens up. Peter’s rejection of cubicle culture is treated as kind a of a spiritual awakening.
It helps, too, that Judge fills in the margins with all kinds of true to life details, from Peter’s posse to the aggravating boss who always catches you when you’re trying to get out a little early or without working weekends. There’s the annoying guy who makes awkward and stupid sex jokes, the strange, off-kilter guy who mostly mutters to himself, and the people who think they’re keeping morale up by saying “Somebody’s got a case of the Mondays!” There’s the printer that never works, the convoluted bureaucracy; many of us have been through some or all of this.
It also helps that the cast is totally game. Livingston brings a kind of James Garner-esque calm to Peter, David Herman (who with Orlando Jones I remember fondly from the early days of Mad TV) is great as the irritable Michael Bolton, and Jennifer Aniston has an appealing girl-next-door presence. She was already in the midst of becoming America’s sweetheart by the time this movie was released, and it’s pretty apparent.
Three performances, for me at least, steal the show.
Diedrich Bader has a relatively small but no less great role as Peter’s wise, affably redneck neighbor who talks about his wish to have two women at once and gives Peter sage advice in the face of a prison sentence (“Protect your cornhole”). Gary Cole is just as great as Peter’s boss Bill Lumbergh, employing a smug, shit-eating grin and a wonderfully irritating drawl. And Stephen Root, as Milton (the original focal point of the animated shorts that inspired this film), is unrecognizable and perfect as the meek, off-putting guy the bosses love to dump on. A trio of great comic performances, to be sure.
Office Space came as R-rated comedy started experiencing a bit of a renaissance with There’s Something About Mary, but it was far less broad and made less of a box-office splash. The emerging DVD market, however, saved it from obscurity, and the film became a cult classic within a few years. I remember working out of the IT office at my school when my boss asked me I’d seen it. Within a couple of days, I not only watched it, but I watched it again and embraced it like it was my life.
Shortly after graduation, it became my life for a little while.
Office Space is one of the great modern comedies, hysterical and packed with jokes, and at the same time, grounded in universal experience. It’s not quite representative of the ’90s, but nonetheless one of the best things to come out of the decade.
