Werner goes in to his office job every day but it is questionable how much work he actually does. Mostly he fills his time doing things like timing how long it takes his screensaver to come on, watching the coffee pot boil or making animal shapes out of paperclips. However it soon becomes apparent to Mr Gorman (his boss) that Werner has basically done f**k all for most of the financial year and decides to take drastic steps to motivate his feckless employee. Next day, when Werner comes to work he finds a live studio audience installed on one side of his office.
A nice little short film this one that doesn't hang around long enough for us to realise that there isn't a huge amount beyond the initial concept here. The idea of an employee getting an audience to motivate him is a nice one and, while the film doesn't perhaps make the absolute most of it, it does still manage to be amusing and quirky enough to justify a look. The plot builds to a punch line and has a bit of a moral about the nature of the work that some of us doing (Werner's job to one side, can you imagine cold calling for a living? It wouldn't really be the monotony that would get me so much as the constant awareness of my place in life). It doesn't really hit this moral as sharply as I would have liked but it is there and it does compliment a twist that isn't as smart as it thinks it is.
The delivery of the short is well done though. It looks very professional and has been shot well by director Noonan. What nailed it for me though was the use of the French narration and English subtitles no reason offered for this but it does just seem to work and again adds to the quirky aspect of the film as a whole. The cast are solid although I did think that perhaps Stoilkovski was a bit too, well, round and soft for the character. He seemed too cheerful for a man who has lost his motivation at work we all waste time and long for more but few of us do it without some hints of cynicism and frustration.
Overall though, it was a clever concept that was well delivered in an amusing little short. Not enough truth or substance in the material to make it stick in the mind but for quirk and imagination it is hard to fault it.