This week we’re reviewing Office Space, a 1999 satirical comedy-drama of a typical 1990s software company. My parents like this movie and watched it with me a few years ago, and I found it entertaining enough that I introduced to my roommate.

In the film, Peter Gibbons works as a programmer in a cubicle at a software company called Initech. He’s frustrated with his job and desperately tries to avoid his boss, Bill Lumbergh, who keeps asking him to work weekends even though Peter feels like he barely has work to do during the weekdays. Peter has two close work friends, Samir and Michael. The three also occasionally talk to Milton, a mumbling and quiet worker who is mostly ignored by everyone in the office, including Lumbergh, who tends to use Milton’s cubicle for storage.

Peter’s girlfriend, who he thinks might be cheating on him, convinces him to attend a hypnotherapy session with her to try and get him to relax. In the middle of Peter’s hypnosis, the doctor has a heart attack and dies, leaving Peter in an overly relaxed state. Peter sleeps through his alarm and several phone calls from Lumbergh and his girlfriend (who angrily breaks up with him and confirms that she was cheating on him over a voicemail) the next day and misses all of work.

Peter finally returns to work, ignoring the dress code and knocking down the wall to his cubicle for a better view. At the same time, two business consultants named Bob Slydell and Bob Porter, or “the Bobs”, begin interviewing people at the company to help Initech downsize. Peter, who no longer cares about work, tells them everything wrong with Initech and about how little he does at work during his interview. The Bobs decide to promote Peter. Unfortunately, they also decide to fire Samir and Michael, and tell Peter this while giving him his promotion, unaware that they are his friends. The Bobs also discover that Milton was laid off 5 years ago, but no one told him or accounting, so he kept working and they kept paying. Lumbergh and the Bobs decide to stop paying him without telling him.

Peter, Michael, and Samir decide to take revenge on the company by installing a computer virus that Michael developed to divert fractions of pennies from business transactions into a bank account for them to share that will eventually accumulate into a large amount of money. Things quickly begin to go wrong.

This movie was based on the Milton cartoon series made by Mike Judge, who also wrote and directed Office Space. While Milton isn’t the main character of the movie, his character is certainly the most important background character, as he battles Lumbergh in the office while Peter and the others plot against Initech. Lumbergh repeatedly has Milton move his desk and takes Milton’s favorite red stapler, which Milton is very attached to. In fact, much of the dialogue in this clip of the cartoon is in the movie.

Another important aspect of the movie is the plotline of Peter’s new girlfriend, Joanna (played by Jennifer Aniston), who he starts dating partway through the film. She works as a waitress at a restaurant near Initech. Her storyline parallels Peter’s, as she is also frustrated with her job and her boss who wants her to wear “pieces of flair” (pins and stickers) on her uniform as part of her dress code and is constantly telling her she should be adding more and being more upbeat at work.

Ratings:

Asha: 6/10. This movie was entertaining, and I would willingly watch it again, but it wasn’t amazing. There are a handful of really good moments in the film, such as this scene when Michael, Peter, and Samir destroy the printer that they hate from work after they get fired, as well as the ending of the movie, which was really good but I will not spoil. Milton and Lumbergh are also done well as characters, as Milton is very pathetic yet interesting, and Lumbergh is very hate-able. However, I didn’t really like Peter’s character, which is unfortunate because he’s the main character who the audience is supposed to support.

Nandini: 6/10 “But only because of Milton. Without Milton, I would’ve given it a 4/10.”