Because it’s so drab and one-note, “Corner Office” leaves the viewer with lots of time to contemplate the Hamm Conundrum. To wit: in Jon Hamm, we have an actor who seems genetically engineered for movie stardom, a chiseled slab of masculinity who wears a suit like he was born to it, and is a magnificent actor, plus possesses an admirable refusal to take himself too seriously. He seems born of another era, a time when icons like Mitchum and Wayne and Brando filled our screens, which is part of why he was so perfect for “Mad Men.” And perhaps that’s why he has yet to find a single feature film that suits his skills; as my friend, the film critic Sean Burns told me, he’s a man, and now they make movies about boys.
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So perhaps that’s why, its many other virtues notwithstanding, it’s so depressing to see Hamm as the sputtering bureaucrat, a role that any one of a hundred other actors could’ve played, in “Top Gun: Maverick,” a movie about a (59-year-old) boy, and that’s certainly why it’s so depressing to see him succumbing to the temptation of actorly dowdiness in “Corner Office.” To play a slightly unbalanced office drone, Hamm hides himself under a cheeseball mustache, bad haircut, giant glasses, spare tire, and ugly suit; it’s like he’s cosplaying Aaron Eckhart in “Your Friends and Neighbors.” Hamm makes himself look bland, which is no small accomplishment. But he’s also smothering much of what makes him an exciting actor.
What’s worse, it’s at the service of an indictment of workplace culture that feels about thirty years past its due date. The subtlety of the picture is on display from its very first image, a wide shot of his black sedan pulling into a parking lot filled with…. identical black sedans. Anonymous offices smother individuality, you see! Hamm’s “Orson” is reporting to his first day of work (“it felt like the first day of school,” he says) at “The Authority, Inc.,” an open floor plan office space of overwhelming greys and beiges. Once his co-worker Rakesh (Danny Pudi) shows him around – “That’s how the coffee machine works,” “This is how the blinds work” – he buckles down, eschewing small talk and coffee breaks in the interest of efficiency. “Finally, I would be able to blossom to my full potential,” he explains, in the film’s never-ending voice-over narration, “to become the person I’ve wanted to be. A person to be reckoned with.”
The director is Joachim Back, a commercial director making his feature debut, and that CV is unsurprising; he has a keen visual sense, and clearly knows exactly how he wants his film to look. The production design, costumes, and camerawork are impeccable. But it’s all surfaces. The visual motifs are trite and predictable – if you are hoping for flickering overhead fluorescents, I have good news for you! – and the various types of the office are familiar from a thousand ‘90s workplace sitcoms. The script (by Ted Kupper, adapting Jonas Karlsson’s novel “The Room”) is more than a little stale, and nothing in Back’s approach can distract from the pervading sense of been there, done that.
The title is derived from the primary plot device: early on, Owen discovers an unused, luxurious office that looks, one cannot help but notice, like something out of “Mad Men.” It’s comfortable – “Everything is exactly in the right place” – and a throwback, and this perfect little space becomes an oasis for him. The problem is, it’s entirely in his head, and his insistence that it exists starts freaking his co-workers out. He maintains productivity, though, so he is kept around.
All of this is odd and off-putting, but it never crosses the line into funny, or insightful, or whatever Back and his writers are hoping to accomplish. By the time it’s come to a head, we can’t help but wonder what exactly they’re trying to say. Is corporate culture so depressing that fantasy becomes the only escape? Is the company stifling Orson’s individuality by refusing him this essentially harmless outlet? Is everyone actually conspiring against him? Is everything in his head? It’s not that the picture must spell out a takeaway, of course – it’s that we should have some sense that the filmmakers had one.
Among the supporting cast, only Sarah Gadon, as the pleasant receptionist and potential romantic interest, makes much of an impression, because she always does. She has the kind of unwinking curveball energy that the character needs – as does the film, frankly – and she navigates the character’s inevitable pivot with grace. And to his credit, Hamm commits; he lets not one drop of his customary charisma into this unpleasant character. He has a few memorable moments, particularly near the end (the genuine menace of the way he says “You’re making a terrible mistake” hints at what he’s trying to accomplish), but they’re not worth the wait. And that non-stop voice-over, which must’ve seemed an efficient way to tell what is essentially an internal narrative, instead amounts to 100 minutes listening to every petty grievance of an insufferable twit. What a waste. [D+]
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