Office Space

Released 19th February 1999, Office Space displays the mundane lives of the employees at Initech as they go about their day-to-day life. Similarly, to Fight Club, the film satirises the mundanity of life through everyday activities such as driving to work, eating out or being lectured by office managers. Whilst this does grind the pace to a drawl in act one, it begins to flow a lot better after Peter Gibbins’ epiphany of life. Ron Livingston gives a fine performance as protagonist Peter Gibbins; you can feel how beleaguered he feels in his monotonous routine and you agree with his flawed mentality going forward.

Stephen Root gave a particularly comical performance as Milton Waddams. More so than any other character he is tossed aside and shown absolutely minimal respect which, while you sympathise with him, makes for entertaining rising action as he is pushed further and further towards the climax. Jennifer Aniston is fine as her now typecast perky love interest (probably one of her better variations of the archetype). David Herman and Ajay Naidu are rather funny as Michael and Samir with their recurring gags and chemistry with Livingston. Whilst the characters their selves aren’t too deep, they are predominantly present to highlight the different stresses one may face in a professional environment and how they are degraded by their superiors.

There are several instances where the editing could have removed some unnecessary repeats of previous jokes and to give Peter’s nightmare sequences less of a goof factor. The soundtrack was actually quite resonant and helped to convey the monotonous atmosphere and liberation in the film well. This is achieved with the use of some leitmotifs and some licensed music from the hip-hop genre. Overall, Office Space isn’t the funniest dark comedy but maybe one of the most provocative if you can look past the weaker jokes.