Movie Review: Clockwatchers (1997)

[Sugar Smack]

Producer:Gina Resnick
Writers: Jill and Karen Sprecher
Director: Jill Sprecher

Iris - Tony Collette
Margaret - Parker Posey
Paula - Lisa Kudrow
Jane - Alanna Ubach

This is a movie about desperation. The majority of it takes place in a rectangular box: mint green, loud with muzac, stifled by fear and humming with fluorescent lights. It's an office in the corporate zone and it brings four ordinary women to their knees.

Iris is the main character. We follow her through friendship and betrayal: she narrarates through the words of a naive, earnest young woman who is desperate to make a connection with someone and find a friend. She has a secret: she has other job opportunities and a private notebook containing her observations. When she shows up for work the first day, her temp status and obvious timidity make her an accessible ally to Paula, Margaret, and Jane. They become fast friends.

Margaret is the alpha-temp. She knows the routine, capitalizes on it, and loathes it at the same time. Parker Posey is fantastic in this role. She flagrantly breaks the rules and "Barbera", the management, is her nemesis. Margaret's aim is like the goal of the other women in the movie, to "make her mark". She's got a secret too: she sneaks drinks on the job, chugging from airplane bottles of booze hidden in her desk drawer. She can't stifle her take on the truth, and in the end she gets reamed for it.

Paula's secret is that she can't make it in show business; ironically, she does a great job in this movie as a loser: she speaks of her ambitions and romance but can't quite follow her own act. Her "mark" is to star in any movie or play under a made-up name, "Camille". You feel sorry for her because her character is so pathetic. She ends every sentence with, "yeah", or "right?" because she absolutely can't expose herself as an insecure temp. One of the scenes that stands out in my mind is when she's on the bus, showing Iris her "credentials". Then she mimics four emotions- happy, sad, anger, and fear. When she gets to "fear", Iris says, "I give up." and Paula says with a bright smile, "It's fear, yeah." She tools thru the movie and makes a spectacle of herself. It's almost painful to watch.

Jane is so obssessed with following "protocol" through her job and through life, it makes her an easy target. She's engaged to a man who cheats on her, but Paula supposes she's better off than the rest of them because "he gives her things". All hell breaks loose at the office. Someone is stealing. Jane says to Iris, "What if it's me? What if I - blacked out and stole? Who knows what the truth is?"

"Chloe" is the new girl. She's the catalyst for the girls' closeness because she is not a temp. She's the real deal. And she's the thief. She's well-off and doing this job out of boredom and connections. When Iris realizes this, she turns from sadsack to brazen bitch. And you've got to see it. It's amazing. Chloe even steals Iris's notebook at one point, and they have a peculiar showdown in the cafeteria. All loyalties are lost, all illusions are unveiled.

I hope you get to see it at least once. This is as good a vision of hell as Hubert Selby Jr. could have envisioned.

[Fenris]

1. One of my favorites!

:hi:

It has a wonderful, ethereal quality to it...it could take place anywhere or nowhere. The weird accordion music adds to the feeling.

[Sugar Smack]

2. It adds a "European" quality to it, doesn't it?

Remember how badly Iris wanted to be accepted, and so she made cupcakes for her co-workers? How weird was that? Everyone else was digging the cupcakes because they were supposed to, and Iris's narrative was that "they liked me, I fit right in". :hi: :toast:

I am so glad to find someone else who liked that movie as much as I did.

[Fenris]

3. I saw it on Starz when I was in high school.

(Not that long ago)

It really effected me. I think it was the sense of alienation and desire to fit in that struck a chord.

:hi:

[Sugar Smack]

4. Tony Collette as Iris really got to me.

She had a thousand facial expressions to covey her feelings. I liked the wrinkled-nose look of her being pleased and smiling. You knew she was finally relaxed and happy for a few minutes.

Then you saw the "bitch" look where she was, you know, completely FINISHED with her situation.

One scene was when she was wearing her sunglasses in the cafeteria and burning her notebook just because Chloe had looked at it.

If you ask me, Chloe was stalking her and appropriating her look.:o

[faithnotgreed]

5. love LOVE that movie - made my 70 yo mom watch it

and she went with it pretty well but had the usual response: she doesnt "get" the movies i like but good naturedly laughs at me for being weird

she honestly told me once in all seriousness that she doesnt know where i came from
so it was very par for the course but i appreciate her usually being a pretty good sport about the things i like even though she doesnt understand it one bit

same thing for other favorite movies: the castle (australian comedy), harold and maude, lovers and other strangers etc etc

[no name no slogan]

6. Nice work, Sug!

Yet another reason why I love you so: you have great taste! :*

[jonnyblitz]

7. I have seen this movie about 5 or 6 times. there are a few flicks

that Parker Posey is in that I will watch whenever they are around or available, this being one of them (IFC plays it all the time),House of Yes and Daytrippers are two others. but yeah, I agree. the Chloe character is great! I am mainly a big Parker Posey fan and will watch a movie because she is in it( though I can live without "You Got Mail").

Your mention of Hubert Selby Jr. made me think of the movie (based on his book)"Last Exit to Brooklyn" with Jennifer Jason Leigh ..:scared:

[Sugar Smack]

8. One of the scariest movies ever made.

"Last Exit to Brooklyn" was a true vision of hell; there's no doubt about it. Jennifer Jason Leigh as Tralala was one of the most horrible things I've ever seen. :scared: