Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: OFFICE ROYALE [Fantasia Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

The beauty of "Office Royale" is its simplicity but yet its balance of cultural identity. In a world grasping both with COVID but also female power roles, it is interesting to see the balance contained herein. There is almost no men in the film (save for some intriguing use in characterization towards the end) but the overall structure based around the theme of enjoying life as an ordinary office lady. It might be an antiquated standard but it is approached with an odd bit of deference. Which is not to say the power struggle and the satire does not make sense. The narrator of the story wants nothing to do with the clique power volume at the company she works at. She is well aware but blissfully wants to look the other way until a hero warrior up ends the office. It speeaks to the struggle between hero and anti-hero, the ninja almost and the samurai. The work place in terms of story structure tries to parallel that of story tructure in the comic book space.

Suffice to say , it makes it more obvious the screenplay was written by a male. However the fights are diametrically brutal. The gist of the film talks about the balance between street rage and elegance of motion. It is a specific diametric and the establishment of the factions within the initial company do paint a specific picture of the superego with the new giirl being almost the Id in their cog. Visually the film plays very well while not going too far out of its borders except towards the end. It is billed as an action comedy but even in that way, its tongue in cheek progression speaks more to "Heathers" than say "Jawbreaker. The aspect of the battles sometimes flow into each other as some of these films do but when it points to a storyline to follow, it works great...even down to a training sequence. This is despite the fact that a story point is introduced with one line as is allowed to hang with no resolve. "Office Royale" is a fun romp with its identity firmly intact despite some antiquated structure which, in a way, is part of its tongue-in-cheek charm. B

By Tim Wassberg