In 1999, Office Space took a broadly comedic look at the petty indignities and absurdities of the white collar workplace. Two years earlier, 1997’s Clockwatchers delivered its own view of this topic.

Iris (Toni Collette) takes on a temp job at Global Credit Association. As she settles into this gig, she befriends three other temps: Margaret (Parker Posey), Paula (Lisa Kudrow) and Jane (Alanna Ubach).

Matters turn tense when GCA brings in Cleo (Helen Fitzgerald) as a permanent hire, a job Margaret hoped to nab. This leads to a mix of complications.

As I viewed Clockwatchers, I couldn’t help but wonder if Mike Judge took some inspiration from it for Space. Some elements just feel a little too close for comfort, such as how office weirdo Milton resembles this flick’s Art.

That said, Judge opted for a much broader comedic and satiric tone. Clockwatchers comes with some of those components but it provides other sides as well.

This doesn’t really work. Clockwatchers attempts a mix of corporate satire, character drama and “coming of age” narrative that fails to connect in a particularly strong manner.

Part of the problem stems from the ill-defined characters. All four of our female leads remain largely one-dimensional and fail to evolve into much more than basic traits.

As our main role, Iris earns the most development, and she becomes the focus of the “coming of age” elements I mentioned. We see her as the timid wallflower without much direction in life who eventually blossoms.

Sort of, as Clockwatchers fails to do much along the way. Iris remains fairly ill-defined beyond her basics, so even though the film takes her on a journey, it keeps things pretty forgettable.

None of the other three get much exposition as well. Paula and Jane remain wholly one-dimensional, whereas Margaret receives a smidgen more, but not enough to go anywhere.

All of this leaves the film as oddly aimless and messy. It dabbles in too many different tonal choices to connect.

Though an overqualified cast makes the film go down more easily. In addition to the four leads, we get folks like Bob Balaban and Debra Jo Rupp to add depth to the proceedings.

Because the actors commit to their underwritten roles, they allow Clockwatchers to remain watchable. Nonetheless, it turns into an erratic and not terribly involving tale.

Clockwatchers appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Expect a surprisingly drab image.

Sharpness became one of the issues, as much of the movie looked rather soft. Close-ups delivered decent delineation, but wider shots leaned fuzzy.

At least neither jagged edges nor moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain seemed light, and the movie lacked print flaws.

Colors offered a bland slightly blue-tinted palette that remained consistently flat. Though I suspect some of this stemmed from a desire to reflect the soul-crushing office environment, I still felt the hues came across as unusually dull.

Blacks seemed decent and shadows came with acceptable clarity. Ultimately, this felt like an awfully bland visual presentation.

Though billed as a DTS-HD MA stereo affair, the movie’s soundtrack sounded relentlessly monaural to these ears. If any audio ever spread to the side channels, I didn’t detect it.

Given that even 2.0 mixes felt primitive circa 1997, the limited soundfield here became even more of a surprise. Not that I expected a dynamic sonic affair for a film like this, but I definitely anticipated something more than mono.

Audio quality seemed adequate. Speech felt a little edgy at times but the lines remained intelligible and reasonably natural.

Music and effects lacked much range, but they showed acceptable clarity. This became a subpar track for a movie from 1997.

No extras appear on this disc.

Half office spoof, half character drama, Clockwatchers never really clicks. A talented cast manages to give the film some spark but its inability to find a groove damages it. The Blu-ray comes with flat picture and audio and we find no bonus features. While not a bad film, Clockwatchers simply fails to coalesce.