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Clockwatchers (1997)
Two years before Office Space (1999) codified the comedic malaise of Gen X cubicle life, Clockwatchers punched in.
Jill Sprecher’s debut feature is owed at least a cup of breakroom coffee by the later film. No one smashes a printer, but Clockwatchers certainly understands that the only solidarity in a corporate office is among co-workers on the same rung of the company—in this case, an ensemble of temp workers played by Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow and Alanna Ubach.
By focusing on 20-something women working temp jobs, this workplace comedy gets its kicks on both lightly Kafkaesque mystery and the disappointment of young people seeking identity outside of work while perched precariously and anonymously on the edge of career opportunity.
When dictionaries, spoons and paperweights start going missing and the company tightens security, it feels like an absurdist conspiracy to break up these work friends. But there’s a sinking reality, too: A job you were doing just for the money can only get worse.
It bears mentioning that, as with every movie in her 1990s run, Posey catapults off the screen, the foil to a workplace that would dare take its monotony seriously. In one scene, she mockingly declares, “I’ve been hawking Wite-Out and pencils on the corner just to make ends meet.” Hollywood, March 7.
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