HAIKU TUNNEL

Year: 2001
USA: Sony Pictures Classics
Cast: Josh Kornbluth, Warren Keith, Helen Shumaker, Amy Resnick, Brian Thorstenson, June Lomena, Sarah Overman, Harry Shearer, Brian Keith Russell, Joshua Raoul Brody, Margo Hall, Joe Bellan, Jennifer Laske, Patricia Scanlon, Jodean Lawrence
Director: Jacob Kornbluth
Country: USA
USA: 90 mins
USA Rated: R for language and some sexuality
USA Release Date: 14 September 2001 (Limited Release - Los Angeles and New York)

Synopsis

December 31, 11:00pm

There are a million temps in the naked city, but Josh Kornbluth (Josh Kornbluth) is the best. He always shows up for work on time, has a Talmudic mastery of Microsoft Word, and only steals office supplies when he absolutely has to. So what's his problem?

His problem is that everything in his life is temporary. His jobs. His relationships. His apartment, with its world-class collection of greasy KFC boxes and half-empty Diet Coke cans.

Josh is suffering from the Unbearable Lightness of Temping, and he can't take it any more.

Now, as fate would have it, his temp agency sends him to a new assignment - at an enormous downtown law firm called Schuyler & Mitchell. As if the prospect of spending a couple of days temping at "S&M" weren't daunting enough, at the end of his very first day Josh is asked the question that he has always feared the most: Will he go "perm"?

It's an offer that he can't refuse (they'll cover his psychotherapy!). So now, for the first time in his life, Josh goes perm. And right away Josh's new boss, the mysterious Bob Shelby (Warren Keith), gives him 17 very important letters to mail out.

But Josh doesn't mail out the letters that day, or the next or the day after that, either.

Each day, Josh comes in to work later and later, dreading the moment when his boss will realize the letters haven't gone out but also, somehow, finding time to work on a novel during work hours. Clearly, this lifelong temp is having a tough time going perm. Clearly, at some point the White-Out is going to hit the fan.

When it finally does, our hapless hero is thrown upon the mercy of oblivious attorneys, an unflappable night guard, a beautiful (and somewhat gullible) young criminal lawyer and, of course, those seemingly unmailable 17 letters.

It's a comedy for our time. It's your boss's worst nightmare. It's HAIKU TUNNEL.