Jennifer Aniston's Filmography
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Peter Gibbons just can't seem to catch a break. His girlfriend is cheating on him, he has an obnoxious neighbor, and he's completely miserable with his job as a small cog in a company called Initech. Then he visits a hypnotherapist, who dies just after putting Peter into a state of complete bliss. Free of worrying about making a living, he no longer feels the need to keep his job, just as the company is going through a massive downsizing. However, his new attitude only makes him more valuable in the company's eyes, and his friends Michael and Samir are fired instead. Together, they scheme to plant a virus inside Initech's computer system that will pull money into their own account.
Work is, after all, what this film is all about, and Office Space is significant in that it tackles the office workplace in perhaps the most effective way I can remember, with only 9 to 5 standing out as another movie with which I can compare it. However, where that film was a fable of the "battle of the sexes", Office Space aspires to deal with the karmic concepts of the value of how one spends their life. Recognizing that not everyone in any company is a 20-something (indeed, the 3 buddies played by Livingston, Herman and Naidu are nearly the only young guys in the company), Judge peoples the fictional firm of Initech with several people in their 40's (including a dead-on performace of the character of "Milton" by Stephen Root... I was shocked to discover that Root is the same actor who plays the boss on the TV show, Newsradio), creating a parallel between the lead characters and what may be their futures.
David Herman (probably most recognizable as one of the cast members on Mad TV) also turns in a memorable performance as a rap-loving Bill-Gates-ish guy named Michael Bolton. In most movies, any of the portions of Herman's character probably would've been milked for even more jokes, but Judge merely takes many elements and mixes them into one guy in an understated manner. The same could be said for many of the characters, with tiny details that I would rather not give out here to avoid spoilers. I will say that the use of small, silent character traits in this film is not unlike the same technique used in Peter Weir's masterful The Truman Show. Judge and Weir both know that they can tell the audience so much more with little character details than any spoken dialogue could say. Ron Livingston also proves himself capable of taking the center stage as his character goes through a Siddhartha-like rediscovery which leads him to approach his job in a new way. As a fan of the TV show Twin Peaks, I thought I found myself seeing similarities between Livingston's performance and Kyle Maclachlan's character of Agent Dale Cooper. That I mention this little detail completely out of context is admittedly a little odd, but I think that the comparison comes from more than just Livingston's physical resemblance to Maclachlan, but also to the way both actors are capable of playing characters with an inner peace living within a world of bureacracy and stultification. Though there are admittedly a few moments in Office Space in which seem more appropriate in the realm of skit comedy than in a feature film, by the end of the movie, as you leave the theater, I think the entire film stands nicely as a complete package, and what you will remember are the dozen or so great supporting performances, and the statements that Judge manages to make about our working world. As the end of 1999 is not that far off, it seems safe to say that Office Space is likely the most capable and entertaining movie about the state of office work in the 1990's, and worth your $6.75 and 90 minutes or so. |
Peter Gibbons 
If one of the keys to comedy is timing (it is), then Mike Judge is continuing to show that he is a master of timing. In Office Space, his live-action-feature debut, as in his animated works (notably Beavis and Butthead and the Milton shorts), Judge uses pauses and silence to give comedic scenes a sense of reality that makes them seem less "jokey". Judge's timing is also remarkable in other ways. Released in early 1999, the workers in this movie are toiling away on the Y2K virus, and in more than one scene, Judge suggests that such high-tech drudgery is not really that removed from the work of waitresses or construction workers. 
Speaking of Root as Milton, the performances in this film are all around perfect. Gary Cole must've spent plenty of time with Mike Judge to so perfectly learn the mannerisms of the supervisor from the Milton shorts. (Though, I suppose, starting off every sentence with "Yeah..." probably got him off to a good start).
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