Office Space (1999)

Director:

Mike Judge

Writers (WGA):

Mike Judge (Milton animated shorts)
Mike Judge (screenplay)

Release Date:

19 February 1999 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Romance

Tagline:

Work Sucks.

Plot:

Comedic tale of company workers who hate their jobs and decide to rebel against their greedy boss.

Plot Keywords:

Boss | Downsizing | Computer | Neighbor | Fax Machine

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Ron Livingston	...	Peter Gibbons
Jennifer Aniston	...	Joanna
David Herman	...	Michael Bolton
Ajay Naidu	...	Samir
Diedrich Bader	...	Lawrence
Stephen Root	...	Milton Waddams
Gary Cole	...	Bill Lumbergh
Richard Riehle	...	Tom Smykowski
Alexandra Wentworth	...	Anne
Joe Bays	...	Dom Portwood
John C. McGinley	...	Bob Slydell
Paul Willson	...	Bob Porter
Kinna McInroe	...	Nina
Todd Duffey	...	Brian - Chotchkie's Waiter
Greg Pitts	...	Drew

Also Known As:

Cubiculos de la oficina (USA: Spanish title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language and brief sexuality.

Runtime:

89 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Certification:

Iceland:L | USA:TV-MA (TV rating) | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:14A (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Brazil:Livre | Singapore:NC-16 | Argentina:Atp | Australia:M | Chile:TE | Finland:S | France:U | Germany:12 | Ireland:15 | Netherlands:AL | Norway:7 | Peru:PT | Portugal:M/12 | Spain:T | Sweden:Btl | UK:15 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

4120 Friedrich Lane, Austin, Texas, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Chotchkie's gets its name from the Yiddish word meaning a cheap trinket or knick-knack.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Samir, Peter, and Mike beat on the fax machine, the top of it is thrown off. When the shot changes to Peter and Samir pulling Mike off and back again, the machine's top is back on.

Quotes:

Bob Slydell: [telling Lumbergh who's going to be fired] There's two more people we can easily lose, and then there's Tom Smykowski... He's useless.
[laughs]
Bob Slydell: Gone.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "100 höjdare: De tio roligaste ögonblicken ur den gott & blandat-påse vi kallar film & tv (#3.7)" (2006)

Soundtrack:

No Tears

As is sure to be the saying by now, anyone who has ever worked in an office should get a pretty good kick out of this one.

Every aggravating thing about working in an office, from the traffic on the way to work to that damn copier, is in this movie, and dealt with in ways that we've all wanted to, at some point or another. Well, except for the traffic, of course. The traffic remains undefeated. Besides telling a highly amusing story about office workers who are just fed up with it all, Office Space is full of other little comments on society, such as the way the film points out the sheer goofiness of geeky white guys who listen to hardcore rap music. The film presents a heavily exaggerated version of the typical office, but underneath that exaggeration, the depiction is very accurate. You have the fairly timid but passive aggressive superior, Bill Lumbergh, portrayed hilariously by Gary Cole, the repressive office cubicles, the mumbly guy that kind of weirds everyone out, and of course, the disillusioned office employee who just doesn't care anymore.

Ron Livingston fulfills this last role very well, being very open about his dislike of his job and his intentions to do as little as possible for as long as he still gets paid, but it is the weird guy that really gets laughs consistently, whose name, in this case, is Milton. This guy's hilarious situation involves having been laid off years before without knowing because no one told him, because he still receives a paycheck due to a glitch in the payroll system, and whose primary concerns seem to be the location of his cubicle, his red stapler, and the fact that last year, he didn't receive a piece of cake at the office party. The way that this guy's situation gets consistently worse and the way that he is pushed further and further toward the edge of sanity is one of the funniest things about this movie. And we can't forget the Indian guy, Samir, whose grammatically flawed exclamations also provide for an endless source of comedic entertainment.

Jennifer Aniston plays a small role as Peter Gibbons' (Livingston) love interest, as well as that of a waitress who is also sick and tired of the ridiculousness of her job (such as a specified minimum of pieces of `flair' that employees must wear to work). Ron's home life is another thing that is parodied in this high quality comedy, as the shortcomings of living in an average apartment are clearly and side-splittingly portrayed. Clearly, the office scenes are by far the funniest of the film, and the eventual criminal plot to embezzle a huge sum of money from the company and take up a lifestyle of not really doing anything, despite the fact that it is also very well done, can be largely overlooked because of the sheer hilarity of the rest of the film. This is excellent stuff from the famous creator of the endlessly amusing Beavis & Butt-Head who, with Office Space, has further proved that he is just the type of guy who knows what's funny.