Cheap Bartleby (DVD) (Crispin Glover, David Paymer) (Jonathan Parker) Price

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Customer Reviews of Bartleby

Featuring a stellar cast and deft direction, the film takes place in an office building perched high up on a hill, which is inaccessible to pedestrians. Isolated and insular, this building houses a public records firm run by an unnamed boss (David Paymer). The film is staffed by Vivian (Glenn Headley), a sexy, flirtatious secretary, Rocky (Joe Piscopo), self-styled ladies man, and Ernie (Maury Chaykin), a sad sack sort of fellow.

When the boss gets a city contract, he seeks to hire another employee. Enter Bartleby (Crispin Glover), a cadaverously pale, funereally dressed man. As there are no other applicants, the slightly creepy Bartleby gets the job. An odd duck, he initially works as if he were a house on fire. As time goes on, his boss discovers that Bartleby prefers not to do any work. This sets off a reaction from all those who work with Bartleby, whose life spirals ever downward with his decision to withdraw from the world.

Crispin Glover, David Paymer, and Glenn Headly are brilliant in their respective roles. The more peripheral office characters, unfortunately, have little to work with, though they do their best with the material with which they have to work. Their roles, however, are one dimensional and add little to the film in terms of depth.

This off-beat, quirky film also resonates with dissonance through the use of bright, odd color combinations for its sets. It serves to keep the film a tad off balance, which works effectively given its premise. In the end, however, the film fails to sustain itself fully, as it starts a spiral downward towards the end, unable to sustain the weight of its own ballast.

Odd movie, but interesting nonetheless
I was originally NOT going to give Bartleby 5 stars, but with all the bad reviews here, I thought I would even things out a bit. I think a lot of people just didn't get it, although granted the short story by Melville that Bartleby is based on is certainly a lot easier relate to. The movie was sort of parody thereof. It been suggested that Bartleby is suffering from soul sickness. That he's dead inside from all the years spent at the dead letter office. He is just existing on existence's most minimalist level. He'd "prefer not to" because he realizes the futility of it all. I think the biggest problem with the movie was that they were trying to turn something heavy into a "comedy" when clearly the label doesn't apply.

The acting I thought was great especially Crisping Glover and Glenne Headly. Also the colors that they used were fantastic, Crispin Glover was literally black and white , in fact I am sure they used makeup on Crispin, there is no way he is that pale.

Overall highly recommend if you are looking for something a bit different.

Recommendation: "Prefer not to" View this Clueless Film
There is absolutely nothing redeemable about this film. Absolutely nothing. Watching a blank videotape would provide infinitely more entertainment and more sense.

Here... lemme save y'all two hours of your time...

(Spoilers follow)

An employee (Bartleby) is hired who... "prefers" not to work. That's right... the employee won't do anything but sit and stare into space! After exhausting all avenues to understand and help him, the employer eventually is forced to fire him. The employee then "prefers" not to leave. Rather than call the police to have the idiot removed, the employer feels the only way to rid himself of this fired employee is to leave, himself (?!). That's right... he moves his entire business!

The fired employee, however, continues to remain at the old office even as new tenants occupy it, still standing and staring off into space. The new tenants, rather than having the idiot arrested for trespassing, inexplicably blame the old employer and threaten to sue him unless he finds a way to remove the ex-employee (?!!) Finally, out of the blue, the ex-employee is arrested for vagrancy and thrown out into the street. The ex-employee continues preferring not to do anything but stand aimlessly under an overpass... until he finally dies, apparently from exposure and starvation, preferring death to life(?!!!). (Small wonder no one can care about the main character when the main character "prefers not to" care about or for himself.)

Inexplicably it is the employer, who has done everything in his power to be patient with and helpful to this worthless employee, blames himself (???!!!!!), as he has throughout the entire movie, for this idiot who "prefers not to" be responsible for anything in his life. The movie ends with the kind employer writing a book about Bartleby and presenting it to a publisher who refuses to print such a ridiculous story about such a brainless person (too bad the publisher of the short story and the producers of this film didn't have enough brains to do the same!). The employer suddenly becomes enrages, blathering about without this book no one will ever know who Bartleby was and the significance (???????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) of his life. He starts screaming that he "prefers not to" leave the publisher's office. The closing scene has him screaming this out over and over again... fade to black.

There... I just saved ya 2 hours. Wasn't that fun?