Office Space is 25 years old. Wow, a quarter of a century.
It wasn’t a highly anticipated release in the crowded calendar of 1999. Arguably the greatest movie blockbuster year of our lifetime to this point. Even this early in the calendar we were watching “Payback”, “She’s All That” and “Varsity Blues”. We didn’t expect this one.
And while it may be a classic now, given we got Jennifer Aniston, in her most likable non Rachel Green role, the awesome Gary Cole, epic Stephen Root, and Diedrich Bader as the next door neighbor, I didn’t see it for any of them.
I saw it for Ron Livingston.
While Livingston is the star of “Office Space” he doesn’t get enough credit for the role.
And he doesn’t get enough credit for his monologue in “Swingers” which came out a few years earlier and is one of the best break up speeches you will ever hear.
Here. Watch.
Doesn’t that wake you up? And credit to Jon Favreau for leaning into it so well.
But it was that speech that got me into the theater to take this ride involving red staplers, the two Bobs, and Michael Bolton. There were only about a dozen people in the screening in upstate New York, and when we laughed it was completely audible which side it was coming from.
Bader’s Lawrence the next door neighbor got some of the biggest laughs. And the ending had us guessing all the way until the end.
“F’ing A” I can’t recommend it enough. Even after all these years.
Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.
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