Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Having never worked in a cubicle, I can't quite say I really understand Office Space. Instead, at my job, I stand around all day and make people burgers... or I give them their burgers. Or I make their fries. Either way, we don't employee meetings, birthday parties, downsizings (in fact, we are hiring more people than I think we can hold right now), and very few are called into work (I've only been asked to come in once). So you can see, working at McDonald's is nothing like what Office Space's main character, Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), has to go through at Initech.

But that doesn't keep it from being a funny movie.

Office Space, since the day it hit video (no one really saw it in theaters), is a classic. It is so much a classic that when young people, such as the ones at my school, are trying to make light of authority ruining their lives, they all of a sudden start quoting Office Space. Then a huge conversation begins about it. And it makes you never want to see the movie again. It is also so much a classic that the film's original Red Swingline Stapler is now sold on the company's website (it was custom, never existing before). It's such a classic, that any adult who has seen it encourages all waitresses and those who have worked in a cubicle to see it.

So you should probably see it. Why? The thing that sticks out for me is the characters, which are all driven by irreplacable actors. Livingston is the perfect guy to play a man who hates his life, and whose idea of a perfect day is to sit on his @$$. You can go over the Internet Movie Datebase (imdb.com) and see exactly what I mean. Before his life takes a strikingly relaxing turn, he is the man I'm sure so many middle-aged adults can sympathize with. He sits in a cubicle all day and really doesn't do much for the company he works for, and he hates it. Livingston's portrayal of this character is brilliant, especially hitting the note right in a scene with an "occupational hypno-therapist".

Then there's Bill Lumbergh, played by the flexible Gary Cole, who plays Ron's boss. My father says he's had a number of bosses, especially a certain one, that resemble this guy. His infectious "Yeeeeah's" get you right from the start. It's amazing- but no one, as far as I've seen, really ever takes a look at how good of an actor this guy really is. In One Hour Photo, as Robin Williams' boss, he's much more of an @$$hole, and a good that. He's pretty good as a chilled back guy in Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! as well. Plus there's the Michael Bolton-loving Bob's, who really look like the type of guys who would love to downsize you, and do a great job at convincing the viewer they're nice guys who just love their job.

Yeah. There's more to it all than that, but there's are all the acting notes I feel like hitting for now. To really nail it, I'd need a 300-page essay or so, and I don't really feel like doing that right now.

Judge's written and directed comedy has him exploring things just as he needs to have them. Seeing Peter, so many of us can understand the woes he faces of a boring, weakly fated life. The repetition is also seeable, and the audience feels it when he says, "Boy, some days", and you know he's said it a million times. He gets the idea his girlfrined is cheating on him, and his boss never really gives a day off. Ah, the life of so many Americans. Oh, and he gets stuck in traffic every day. Stuff like that.

Then Peter gets the turn-around so many Americans don't get. After a weird hypnotherapy session, he's calm as a Hindu cow, and his acceptance of his girlfriend breaking up with him (and confessing cheating on him), his boss calling him 17 times when he's late for work, and the smugness of Peter just going into a restaurant and asking a random woman out to dinner all demonstrates how good Judge is as a director, and how good Livingston is as an actor. When Peter gets an interview with the downsizing Bobs, Judge's best shot is the two of them paired together, never individually, to so well demonstrate that they are one. Peter, however, gets a pulled back, relaxed look, as if he's some sort of genius that none of us will ever come to emulate.

There's all this mish-mash about crediting conspiracies and 7-figure settlements and stuff like that, and the movie just chugs along perfectly, with a completely satisfying ending, one that's not a cop-out. Office Space works because those who understand it laugh at the movie's nudging jokes, and those who don't just laugh at the characters and their ways, such as Peter's friend, Michael Bolton, who hates his name (calling the real man a "no-talent @$$ clown") and listens to rap music.

Eh... it's an indescribably funny movie. Sometimes I wish I had waited twenty more years to see it, so that I could get it more. Oh well, too late.

Rating: A-

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD