OFFICE SPACE It's Hell, With Cubicles! Review By Bruce Cantwell "Since I started working, every single day has been worse than the day before, so that every day you see me is the worst day of my life," Y2K debugger Peter (Ron Livingston) tells his girlfriend's "occupational hypnotherapist." Mike Judge's satire of the dysfunctional corporate workplace (a wasteland of grey partitions, outdated computers, efficiency consultants and meaningless work) is equal parts comedy and horror story. The Dilbertian Initech corporation looked eerily familiar to me down to the Herman Miller gunmetal grey ergonomic chairs. Sadly, the most familiar image was the lifeless expression on the workers' faces when Division Vice President Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole) announces that Friday will be Hawaiian shirt day. Protagonist drone Peter makes a change in his life when his girlfriend's hypnotherapist keels over in the middle of a session after taking Peter to a quiet, relaxing place. The next day, Peter decides that he's not going to the office any more because he doesn't like it very much. He asks Joanna (Jennifer Aniston), the waitress at a Bennigan's type restaurant, out to lunch. When he stops by the office on his way home from fishing, he tells the efficiency consultants that he probably works about 15 minutes a week. It's not surprising that instead of being fired, he's promoted. Unfortunately, to put some more money in his pocket and a staff at his disposal, his two best friends, Michael Bolton (David Herman) and Samir (Ajay Naidu) have to be replaced by some kids fresh out of school. This is the last straw. Their revenge isn't particularly inspired but further details that Judge (creator of BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD and KING OF THE HILL) gets exactly right are Peter's snail's-pace commute and the paper thin walls of his apartment. His neighbor Lawrence (Diedrich Bader) shouts through the wall for him to "check out the chick on channel 9." When Milton (Steven Root) is introduced as a long-time employee who loses a little dignity each time they move his desk, I mentioned the name of his spiritual counterpart at the company where I worked. To be fair, corporate work conditions are a cakewalk compared to the deadly abuses that our grandparents faced. Try to tell someone who went through the depression about Carpal Tunnel syndrome. Today, all corporations ask of their employees is a six (occasionally seven) day week and if you could just go ahead and leave your soul at the door that would be just great, okay?	Warning: include() [function.include]: URL file-access is disabled in the server configuration in /home/bruce20/public_html/myenvoy/movies/reviews/office_space.php3 on line 33 Warning: include(http://myenvoy.com/movies/side.php3) [function.include]: failed to open stream: no suitable wrapper could be found in /home/bruce20/public_html/myenvoy/movies/reviews/office_space.php3 on line 33 Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening 'http://myenvoy.com/movies/side.php3' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/php') in /home/bruce20/public_html/myenvoy/movies/reviews/office_space.php3 on line 33
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