Life in the office couldn't be portrayed more accurately in this wicked satire by Mike Judge. A sleeper cult movie, OFFICE SPACE doesn't have that much of a plot as an idea, where every possible cliché of the "employee" and the "manager" is brought to existence during the first half.
The story revolves around Peter (Ron Livingston) who hates his job, and who has a nasty, micromanaging supervisor (Gary Cole, the physical embodiment of the manager/supervisor who we can't bear to see and would love to kill) who has a thing for using the exact template for the company's cover sheet, and Milton (Stephen Root), the office "loser" who can't stand up for himself to save his life and whose cubicle keeps getting moved all around the office building (while he endlessly mumbles about his office rights as compared to his co-workers' rights; his character is that blot people normally take for as the overworked wreck we feel compelled to kick into the gutter). Into this mix is Michael Bolton (not the singer, played by David Herman) and Samir (Ajay Naidu), both having last names frequently made out to be the brunt of co-workers' insensitive jokes and who later assist Peter in a plan to get rich quick and leave the work-force for good.
OFFICE SPACE also revolves around a possible romance about to happen between Peter and Joanna (Jennifer Aniston), a waitress at his favorite restaurant who has her own share of problems, like being micromanaged by her own boss who wants from her the "right kind of attitude" which entails having her wear as much "flair" as her uniform may allow.
As I said, this is not a plot-based story but a clever comedy that presents situations that arise from minimal events at work. Some of the funniest moments are when Peter finds out of a co-worker who by chance has gotten an early retirement -- but at the hefty price of being hit by a car and almost killed while driving to work after contemplating suicide. There is an element of "cartoon" behavior here; Mike Judge, responsible for BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD and KING OF THE HILL, seems to like to tell stories about "types" and their personality quirks and how they affect or irritate one another. As a matter of fact, this would have worked perfectly in an animated form, because everything about OFFICE SPACE calls for cartoon setting, but despite being a fully acted feature it holds its own as a slice of life among office employees in Anytown, USA.
The story revolves around Peter (Ron Livingston) who hates his job, and who has a nasty, micromanaging supervisor (Gary Cole, the physical embodiment of the manager/supervisor who we can't bear to see and would love to kill) who has a thing for using the exact template for the company's cover sheet, and Milton (Stephen Root), the office "loser" who can't stand up for himself to save his life and whose cubicle keeps getting moved all around the office building (while he endlessly mumbles about his office rights as compared to his co-workers' rights; his character is that blot people normally take for as the overworked wreck we feel compelled to kick into the gutter). Into this mix is Michael Bolton (not the singer, played by David Herman) and Samir (Ajay Naidu), both having last names frequently made out to be the brunt of co-workers' insensitive jokes and who later assist Peter in a plan to get rich quick and leave the work-force for good.
OFFICE SPACE also revolves around a possible romance about to happen between Peter and Joanna (Jennifer Aniston), a waitress at his favorite restaurant who has her own share of problems, like being micromanaged by her own boss who wants from her the "right kind of attitude" which entails having her wear as much "flair" as her uniform may allow.
As I said, this is not a plot-based story but a clever comedy that presents situations that arise from minimal events at work. Some of the funniest moments are when Peter finds out of a co-worker who by chance has gotten an early retirement -- but at the hefty price of being hit by a car and almost killed while driving to work after contemplating suicide. There is an element of "cartoon" behavior here; Mike Judge, responsible for BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD and KING OF THE HILL, seems to like to tell stories about "types" and their personality quirks and how they affect or irritate one another. As a matter of fact, this would have worked perfectly in an animated form, because everything about OFFICE SPACE calls for cartoon setting, but despite being a fully acted feature it holds its own as a slice of life among office employees in Anytown, USA.