American Job

Director: Chris Smith

1996 / 90min / DCP

Before obtaining cult immortality with American Movie, Smith made his auspicious feature debut with this microbudget, poker-faced mockumentary that approximates the style of an industrial film to follow Randy Scott (Randy Russell, credited as co-writer), a young man of limited skills and aspirations, as he listlessly makes his way through a litany of menial minimum-wage gigs: telemarketer, dishwasher, factory floor stooge, motel turn-down service, etc. What may in 1996 have seemed an unduly grim vision of the fate of the American working-class seems, 30 years on, nothing less than prophecy. “A miracle of Midwestern ingenuity and economy, Smith’s utterly remarkable first feature… [is[ as hilarious as it is is depressing.” —Amy Taubin, The Village Voice

Part of The Office of Emptiness