|
What's the major difference between "The Office" and our own "Management Secrets of T. John Dick?" How about two Golden Globes for best comedy or musical and best actor in a comedy or musical?
In David Brent, manager at the fictitious paper company Wernham Hogg, Ricky Gervais has created a character who will simultaneously make you laugh and cringe with embarrassment. He is the archetypal useless boss, insensitive to a hilarious degree and completely oblivious to what his employees really think about him, maintaining his deluded self-image as "a friend first and a boss second...probably an entertainer third." This self-deception is what makes an apparently odious character human and unexpectedly sympathetic.
Other characters seem to be stereotypes of office fauna - the brown-nosing Team Leader, Gareth (Mackenzie Crooks), vulgar sales rep, Chris Finch (Ralph Ineson), the decent but downtrodden Tim (Martin Freeman) with his longing for receptionist Dawn, only a few feet from his desk, but out of reach.
What makes "The Office" more than just funny is the pathos arising from the lies the characters tell to each other, to the camera and especially to themselves. This is most painful in the case of Dawn's failure to admit to herself what is made painfully clear to the audience with brilliantly underplayed subtlety - that she is strongly attracted to Tim - and Tim's rationalization of his feelings for Dawn. Will these two ever get together? In most sitcoms, the answer would be, "Of course." But "The Office" feels so real. And in real life, there are often no neat, happy endings. That's what makes the moving final episode, which aired in the UK at Christmas one of the most suspenseful couple of hours I've ever spent.
Written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant.
Directed by Stephen Merchant
|
|
