Kafkaesque short stories, even those written by Kafka, tend to work better on the page than on the screen. That becomes apparent once again with Joachim Back's ambitious film adaptation of Jonas Karlsson's acclaimed existentialist novel The Room, which received its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Retitled Corner Office, the film features a fascinating premise that sadly wears thin over the course of its feature length. But it provides an opportunity for Jon Hamm to demonstrate his gift for deadpan comedy.
Director: Joachim Back
Writers: Ted Kupper, Jonas Karlsson
Stars: Jon Hamm, Danny Pudi, Christopher Heyerdahl
In "Mad Men," Jon Hamm had his corner office: the room with a view, overlooking Madison Avenue, where Don Draper could work, drink, and brainstorm in peace. Perhaps that's why the actor was drawn to playing a humble paperboy with an ugly mustache and big dreams of filling that space in "Corner Office," a low-key workplace satire that offers audiences a side of Hmm. never seen before, and he may not be in such a hurry to re-experience, unless the pandemic's work-from-home blues have made them receptive to the call of cubicle life.
Premiering at the Tribeca Festival, "Corner Office" is director Joachim Back's mildly demanding film version of "The Room," a lean, unread-by-me novel by Swedish actor-author Jonas Karlsson that bills itself as "A short, sharp, devilish fable in the tradition of Franz Kafka, Samuel Beckett, and Charlie Kaufman." Check, check, check, as far as those three nonsensical writers go, though I'd take issue with the other descriptors on that note.
Slow, forceful, and benign, the film stretches its relatively weak premise (that Hamm's character Orson has discovered a secret office hidden halfway between the elevator and the bathroom of his thankless new desk job) to more than 100 minutes, reducing Orson to a pathetic figure in the process. Movie fans will recognize the opening shot, which is not identical to, but at least very similar to the aerial view of a snow-covered parking lot from "Fargo," a hard-to-beat portrayal of an equally exasperated drone (William H. Macy's Jerry Lundegaard) looking for any angle to get ahead.
In Orson's case, we learn nothing of his private life, just his ambition to advance a stupid entry-level job with The Authority, a vaguely bureaucratic organization (an infinitely tall CG skyscraper perched above the brutalist entrance to Simon University). Fraser) so antiseptic that employees are encouraged to wear blue plastic booties to protect floors. Director Back and his production designer, Troy Hansen, emptied this workspace of personal style, cleverly forcing perspective in some of their sets to make the typically tall and handsome Hamm appear drab and aloof in virtually every room except in a.
Orson can't explain what a cozy unused executive suite is doing on his floor, but he finds it the perfect haven from stress. At first, he just sticks his head out. But as the pressures mount, Orson gets brasher and sneaks off to the corner office, with its rich wood paneling, mid-century modern furniture, and vintage record player. With each visit from him, he feels more at home, putting his feet up on the desk and stealing case files from his senior colleagues and filling them out comfortably.
“When I work there, I can do anything,” he confesses to Alissa (Sarah Gadon), the friendly face who works the front desk. None of Orson's colleagues quite know what to make of him, and Back takes pains to contrast the way Hamm's voiceover describes them with the behavior we see. Either our eyes are playing tricks on us, or Orson is delusional. Something is wrong with Orson, judging by the way everyone treats him like a mental patient.
After he begins to disappear into his room, Orson's colleagues - deskmate Rakesh (Danny Pudi), nosy Carol (Allison Riley) and bumbling Mitchell - stage an intervention and call a meeting with the office manager. Andrew (Christopher Heyerdahl). The boss seems sympathetic, but again, Orson's version of things doesn't mesh with what other characters are saying, making the twist, when everyone suddenly recognizes his brilliance, hard to swallow. His coworkers claim that Orson stands in front of a blank wall and stares, without responding, for long periods of time.
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