#Jill Sprecher

[fairweathermyth]

CLOCKWATCHERS dir. Jill Sprecher, 1997

[valkaryah]

Clockwatchers (1997) dir. Jill Sprecher

[pacingmusings]

Seen in 2024:

Clockwatchers (Jill Sprecher), 1997

[allweknewisdead]

Clockwatchers (1997) - Jill Sprecher

Sometimes it hits you how quickly the present fades into the past, and you question everything around you.

[thewomanwithmissingfingers]

Parker Posey in Clockwatchers, 1997

[silverscreencaps]

Clockwatchers (1997) dir. Jill Sprecher

[ablimmingnother]

Parker Posey in Clockwatchers (1997, dir. Jill Sprecher)

[erstwhile-punk-guerito]

[watching-pictures-move]

Movie Review | Clockwatchers (Sprecher, 1997)

I think this movie really gets the alienation of the young, inexperienced contract worker. The way that the rules of the workplace, explicit or unspoken, are wielded against you by those with a modicum of power, real or perceived. The way that your only real friends are the other young, inexperienced contract workers, and the way you bond over your disaffection and disdain for office bullshit, even if forming your clique makes you the target of the rest of the office. Moments like the protagonist being told to wait, left unattended for hours, and then being chastised for waiting unattended for hours, are funny because they’re accurate, and maybe sting a little if you’ve been put through similar indignities.

If you want a bit of storytime, my first “real” job after graduating was as a contractor for a project. Like in this movie, my only real friends at the job were other contractors on the same project. And because the project had us embedded with other teams to execute the project, which would enforce a relatively minor change on one work artifact they had to produce, the people in those teams decided to take it out on me by booking my desk out from underneath me (as a contractor, I didn’t have access to the booking system), and was kicked out of the free desks by a more senior person complaining that I was typing too loud. So I learned pretty early just how childish people could be in a professional setting and the way that the setting enabled such pettiness. So the ambient feelings here certainly rang true, even if the specifics differed from my experience and these characters didn’t seem quite as desperate to find or hold onto their jobs as I think people seeking entry level jobs are these days.

And I think the movie nicely realizes these sentiments into the tactile experience of being in the office. The deadening false cheer of the ugly coloured walls. The fascistic geometry of the furniture, where having a cubicle, let alone an office, is wielded as a status symbol over those with more open desktops. In my current job we’ve recently started to have to book our desks in advance, which is much more painful than anyone realized. I’m pretty sure some of my coworkers would kill for even the crappy open desks the protagonists have here.

I do think this is a relic of the ‘90s, but not necessarily in a bad way. I imagine a more recent take on this premise would more explicitly spell out the conditions of late capitalism that result in such a work environment, something that no doubt would be articulated as leadenly as possible given the state of modern cinema. Here, the movie makes room for introspection with respect to the heroine’s career prospects, which makes it a sort of companion piece with Office Space, even if the latter movie has a more pronounced absurdist streak. (And if you want some reading material to go alongside your double feature, The New Me by Halle Butler hits satirical similar notes and is a nice and breezy read to boot.) And the performances here are quite strong, although as you can guess from its inclusion in the Criterion Channel’s Parker Posey series, Parker Posey steals the show.

[letterboxd-loggd]

Clockwatchers (1997) Jill Sprecher

May 14th 2024

[byneddiedingo]

Parker Posey, Toni Collette, Lisa Kudrow, and Alanna Ubach in Clockwatchers (Jill Sprecher, 1997)

Cast: Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow, Alanna Ubach, Helen FitzGerald, Stanley DeSantis, Jamie Kennedy, David James Elliott, Debra Jo Rupp, Kevin Cooney, Bob Balaban, Paul Dooley. Screenplay: Jill Sprecher, Karen Sprecher. Cinematography: Jim Denault. Production design: Pamela Marcotte. Film editing: Stephen Mirrione. Music: Mader. 

Blessed are the meek, they say. Certainly Iris (Toni Collette) qualifies as meek when, on her first day as a temp at a credit company, she does as she's told and sits patiently for a very long time until Barbara (Debra Jo Rupp), the human resources manager, sees her and scolds her for not letting anyone know she was there. Self-effacing to a fault, Iris soon finds herself with a group of new friends, all temps who have been "temporary" for quite a while (a dodge companies use to keep from paying benefits). Each of them is more outgoing than Iris: Margaret (Parker Posey) is sassy and subversive, eager to point out to Iris ways to do as little work as possible. Paula (Lisa Kudrow) claims to be just passing time while waiting for her big break as an actress. Jane (Alanna Ubach) is engaged and can't wait until marriage frees her from office work. Iris's father (Paul Dooley), meanwhile, is urging her to get a good job in sales, something that her shyness makes her unsuitable for. This is the setup for Jill Sprecher's satire on contemporary work in the kind of office, scored to the artificial peppiness of Muzak, that anyone who ever worked for a corporation that values productivity over creativity, routine over initiative, and regimentation over individuality will recognize. In Clockwatchers, meekness wins out: Iris lasts longer in the job than her friends, even after the company makes their work lives more miserable than ever. But she's bested by an employee even meeker than she is, but who adds sneakiness to the meekness. As satire, I happen to think the film is a little too low key, and that the casting of vivid actresses like Posey and Kudrow, wonderful as they are, works against the mood of the film, but it has the ring of truth throughout.  

[fairweathermyth]

I once read that there are two kinds of time: mechanical and human. You could say my story began at 8:59 the day I started that job, and ended months later, when I left it. But I'd tell you it began in the past, with my old self; and ended in the future, the new one.

CLOCKWATCHERS dir. Jill Sprecher, 1997

[valkaryah]

"Sometimes I thought about what Margaret said, about how a person can just drift through life, like they're not connected to anyone or anything. You look around, all those characters trying to kill time, going around in circles. Even if a person wanted to break free, they could find out they've got nowhere else to go." Clockwatchers (1997) dir. Jill Sprecher

[viggos-mortensen]

PARKER POSEY

in Clockwatchers (1997), dir. Jill Sprecher

[gunarchy]

Clockwatchers (1997) dir. Jill Sprecher

i believe anyone interested in secretary-core and the Maxi Skirt Agenda should watch this movie

[thewomanwithmissingfingers]

Clockwatchers, 1997, dir. Jill Sprecher