Clockwatchers

What happens when satire is outdone by its own subject? Jill Sprecher's debut casts a jaundiced eye on the lives of temp workers, but Clockwatchers isn't nearly as bleak, surreal or bizarre as temp work itself. The film starts off sharply enough, as newcomer Toni Colette is introduced to her fellow impermanent wage-slaves: Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow and Alanna Ubach. Sprecher's initial presentation of the combination of soul-deadening boredom and dehumanized anxiety that defines temping is bitterly funny, although the film could have used sharper set design to put the point across with more punch. (Indie vet cinematographer Jim Denault's work here is uncharacteristically poor; the whole movie has a blurry, washed-out look.) Clockwatchers falters mightily, though, as the script takes a turn into dramatic waters, and a thoroughly phony office supply theft mystery comes to dominate the last hour. Sprecher and her sister Karen, who co-wrote the script, would probably say the movie's not about temping but about the characters, and that's precisely the problem, since the characters are mostly bores. It's too bad the satirical angle is abandoned so soon, since Clockwatchers stops far short of exhausting the possibilities, and never touches on the real insidiousness of temp work: the rapid growth of no-security, no-benefit jobs as a short-term fix for corporate greed. Posey brings her usual pathological sassiness to the party, and Kudrow, a tart and underrated comedian, is surprisingly moving as a woman who can't break the habit of dreaming even though she's already given up hope.

—Sam Adams