HAIKU TUNNEL A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 2001 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ***
The bizarrely named HAIKU TUNNEL -- no, it's not a Japanese anime -- is a sweetly humorous film that oozes charm from every pore. Starring Josh Kornbluth as Josh Kornbluth, it is a crowd-pleaser that puts the audience into rolling howls. Although not up to the level of Mike Judge's low budget masterpiece, OFFICE SPACE, HAIKU TUNNEL is an over-the-top, yet dead-on, office comedy that rings true even when it's the most exaggerated.
Josh, a happy yet neurotic balding guy, has a predicament, "to perm or not to perm?" No, he's not worried about what to do with his long, shaggy side-hair, but whether he should make the big leap in life and convert from a temporary secretary at the law firm -- S&M, no less -- where he works, to a permanent employee. Like a virgin who finally decides to make the big plunge -- "I don't go perm on my first week." -- he throws caution to the wind and signs up.
At first the story looks like it will be a dark, Kafkaesque one. When Josh goes to work at S&M, he finds that the only paper on his desk is an eleven-and-a-half page memo to the previous secretary explaining precisely what the boss expected of her. Although he fears that his boss is the devil incarnate and he worries that he'll be caught messing up by the Nazi-like head secretary, his fears prove unfounded, and the story turns out to be one of the sweetest ones of the year.
Along the way Kornbluth, who sometimes reminds one of a chubby Woody Allen, copes with his many neuroses with great flair. A wonderfully likeable actor, Kornbluth could easily carry the movie on his own shoulders, and, indeed, the film sometimes plays like a comedy monologue. The supporting cast, which brings an improv feel, perfectly complements the star. My favorite is Helen Shumaker. A wisp of a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair, she plays the stern looking Marlina D'Amore, the head secretary, which she slowly transforms from the Wicked Witch of the West into a real sweetheart.
The writing has Orwellian sharpness, and a key subplot concerns the office class hierarchy. The story also gives the nondescript items of office work a life of their own. In one of my favorite episodes in which Josh retrieves his long lost letters -- they were printed on a printer in another building thanks to the screw-up of a system admin geek -- the pages coo and sing to him in chorus, "You've come for me." Take their advice. Come and see Josh and his wacky workers. They're certain to put a smile on your face.
HAIKU TUNNEL runs 1:30. It is rated R for "language and some sexuality" and would be acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States today, Friday, September 21, 2001. In the Silicon Valley, it is showing at the Camera Cinemas.
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