This is the fourth feature-length film based on the novella by Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener. Although nicely cast, it fails to communicate Melville's personal obsession with anonymous bureaucratic life, or engage in any wider debate on the subject of the polite refusenik of the title.
As Bartleby, Crispin Glover looks more like a vampire who has fallen on hard times than one of life's unfortunates, and his alienating performance fatally fails to engage our sympathy. David Paymer makes a better fist of the boss of the Public Records Office, where Bartleby works, whose illusory life includes telling prospective dates that his is a hip record company (a bit of a stretch for Melville, you'll agree).
Glenne Headly has a good moment as the token female employee when she decides to impress the boss by listing her qualities in as lascivious a manner as she can muster: "I'm an accomplished equestrian; I play the bassoon." But by the 17th time we hear Bartleby refuse to obey an order with the litany "I prefer not to", the comedy momentum has been irretrievably lost.
Designed to death (puce green, bilious yellow and brown walls interrupted by a wall-sized photograph of a woodland scene, complete with deer) and shot in the deliberately flat manner of a live soap opera, this gives the illusion of being a surreal sitcom - as though The Office had been written as an episode of The Twilight Zone - without actually achieving it.
Bartleby
Cert: certPG
