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Clockwatchers

1998, Movie, PG-13, 110 mins

Clockwatchers: Review

CLOCKWATCHERS
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Temps: They're the migrant workers of the desk set, so far down the ladder of corporate success that the bottom rung is up. Sisters Karen and Jill Sprecher, both of whom have done time in the temp salt mines, turn an unsparing eye on a quartet of temporary office workers, and their sharply delineated look at white-collar time-clock-punchers is simultaneously cruelly funny and gently melancholy. Shy, unambitious Iris (Toni Collette) is the new temp at Global credit. She falls in with a neurotic trio of more established temps, who float from desk to desk and menial task to menial task in a self-protective pack. Flamboyant Margaret (Parker Posey) knows instinctively just how to stand up for herself at the wrong time. Flaky Paula (Lisa Kudrow) wants to act, but her projects have a strange way of evaporating whenever anyone asks about them. And obsessive Jane (Alanna Ubach) is just marking time until she can marry boorish boyfriend Derrick (Jaime Gomez), who buys her off with jewelry whenever he has to apologize, which is often. The test of the women's provisional friendship comes when small objects begin disappearing from desks. First the lowly temps are suspected by the staffers, then suspicion oozes into their own ranks. The beauty of this prickly comedy of errors is in the details: The five-minutes-to-five countdown to quitting time, the forced cheer of happy hour on ladies night, the subtle but rigid caste system of low-level cogs in the corporate machine. The ensemble performances are perfectly meshed, and the Sprechers deserves special credit for bringing the desperate underside of Posey's brittle self-assurance to the surface. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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