Four years of classes, tests, tailgates and late nights in college prepare us (hopefully) to become adults and get a job one day. The forward momentum of our early lives, high school, college and work is supposed to lead us to the so-called benefits and responsibilities of adulthood. But by following this prescribed path, are we really avoiding making decisions and ducking responsibility for our own happiness?
In Mike Judge’s “Office Space,” this one-size-fits-all notion of life in corporate culture forms a basis for perhaps the most inept heist film of all time. If a quarter-life crisis is the new mid-life crisis, maybe we have more time to change the direction of our lives. Instead of diving headfirst into whatever direction we get pushed, there’s time to make a decision. Nobody wants to grow up, and in Judge’s world, people don’t have to.
“Office Space” follows office drone Peter Gibbons, played with deadpan precision by Ron Livingston, as he struggles to go through his dead-end job at the evil Initech Corporation. Feeling hunted by multiple annoying bosses while performing a job of no consequence, Peter is driven by his girlfriend to see a hypnotist to discover the reason for the deep unhappiness in his life. When the hypnotist dies in the middle of their session, Peter acquires a whole new attitude and mission — to get fired. When news of layoffs hits the office floor, Peter and his friends hatch a plan to rip off Initech and exact their corporate revenge. Needless to say, things don’t go according to plan.
“Office Space” takes its absurd premise and runs with it. By finding the humor in a scenario familiar and downright depressing to so many people, “Office Space” transcends the usual mediocre workplace comedy drudgery. Its absurdity and humanity paved the way for a whole new genre of grounded workplace comedies with outstanding entries including “The Office.”
Based on its premise alone, “Office Space” could have been another navel-gazing film about the drudgery of American life. For people with so few problems, it seems like an inordinate amount of our cinema focuses on the career problems of alienated and unfulfilled white men. It seems especially strange now, when people can’t even get jobs to hate.
But Judge creates such interesting and rich characters, it’s impossible not to empathize with them. In particular, Stephen Root’s Milton and Gary Cole’s Lumbergh are some of the most interesting characters in recent memory and they’re not even the focus of the film. Judge has a real gift for creating characters and he forged some true classics in “Office Space.”
The film has also achieved the level of comedy fame in which people are still constantly quoting it, sometimes without even knowing where their material is coming from. If ever someone references an “O” face or a red Swingline stapler, it started here and ended up in the cultural lexicon for long after the film. “Office Space” quotes have become shorthand for office drudgery. Although the film feels just as relevant now, it was made more than 10 years ago. Although not much has changed in office culture since then, it makes for an interesting exercise in imagining life in the thick of Y2K panic and prior to social networking.
Like a good portion of cinema plot contrivances, “Office Space” works better because of its lack of technology. The shock to the system of seeing Peter at a computer working instead of on Facebook was enough to make me long for days past when concentrating was so much easier — just seeing people commit crimes via floppy disk is enough to induce nostalgia. These plot devices just wouldn’t work today, and technology seems only to make films more boring. Times today just aren’t as cinematic as they used to be.
“Office Space” is a great film for anyone struggling with an identity crisis. As Chuck Palahniuk once wrote, “Our generation has had no Great War. Our war is a spiritual war.” If Palahniuk provides the battle cry, “Office Space” is the lighthearted look at a culture we’ve created, almost a call to sit up and take control of what we can. Viewed this way, “Office Space” is perhaps the most self-deprecating and funny self-help book ever put on film. The characters are great. It’s humorous, infinitely quotable and a great way to spend 90 minutes after a long day at the office, even if it means having to return to that headspace for a little while during your time off.