A temp worker is promoted to permanent status and finds his whole world changing as a result in this satiric comedy. Josh (Josh Kornbluth) is an overstuffed aspiring writer who is trying to finish his first novel, but in the meantime he supports himself by working as an office temp. Josh has grown accustomed to the Byzantine world of temporary labor, particularly the bossy secretaries and chilly co-workers, but Josh manages to impress his latest employers enough that they offer to make him a permanent, full-time employee. While a fellow temp who worked for the same company warns Josh that taking the job would be a mistake, Josh takes the plunge anyway, and soon discovers that his fellow employees now embrace him as one of their own. He also discovers that Bob Shelby (Warren Keith), his new boss, is more than a little crazy, and when Bob gives Josh an assignment to mail a series of important letters, John finds that he's suddenly incapable of doing this seemingly simple task. Instead, Josh spends his days working on his book (on company time and on a company computer), with his fellow office drones offering emphatic encouragement. Josh Kornbluth adapted Haiku Tunnel (with the help of John Bellucci and Jacob Kornbluth) from a semi-improvised one-man show Kornbluth created with David Ford; the Kornbluth brothers also directed the film. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
is neutral about it.
Effusive, roly-poly writer Josh Kornbluth co-directs and stars in this workplace comedy that's lighter in tone than
Clockwatchers and less like an extended
Saturday Night Live sketch than the more derivative moments of
Office Space. An adaptation of a monologue Kornbluth wrote about temping in San Francisco law firms, Haiku Tunnel is refreshingly funny because it avoids the easy Dilbert route of making all the higher-ups incompetent fascists whose offices run like a paean to arbitrary inefficiency. In fact, the most dysfunctional aspect of the story is the "victim" himself, Kornbluth, who uses his own name to strike down the wall between truth and fiction. An office drifter who vacillates between contented anonymity and a deeper desire for human contact and fulfillment, Kornbluth is undone by the very conditions of his rootless existence, not by his "evil boss," a thematic red herring who's more of a forgiving fuddy-duddy than the devil incarnate. Kornbluth's wide-eyed manner of addressing the audience is intimate and endearing, and his sense of humor is as oddball as his wild appearance. His narration features sharp comic observations about the community he's studied and documented during hours of boredom, realized through lively devices. For example, as a different face appears in each frame, he lists the exotic names of all the receptionists he's worked with -- Charlene, Aileen, Charlena -- and the panoply of attorneys, all named Bob. The only familiar face among an unknown cast is
Harry Shearer, who, oddly enough, appears in one of the least inspired scenes, playing a familiar automaton guiding Kornbluth through the drudgery of orientation. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide