The Temp (1993)

Posted by OX

Peter Derns (Timothy Hutton) is a thirtyish executive in a baking company who has several assets and several handicaps. He is good at his job and is very much in contention for advancement, but also is separated from his wife Sharon (Maura Tierney) and son and is under treatment for paranoia and jealousy, which was the cause for the separation. At work he has a male secretary who is about to become a father.
The phone rings. The secretary's wife is in labor and he's off for an extended period of Family Leave. A very important report by Peters Derns is due at noon the next day, and he's minus a typist! So he will spend that evening in his rented house working on the report in the vain hope that he'll find someone to type it the next morning.

When he arrives at work, a pleasant surprise! An excellent pair of legs is attached to a Temp the agency has sent named Kris Bolin (Lara Flynn Boyle), who is highly efficient, very skillful at her job, and not in the slightest afraid of hard work. That she's also VERY easy on the eyes and has a "to-die-for" figure and legs is just icing on the cake. She takes charge immediately and finishes the report just in time to keep Derns' chances for advancement right up there with those of Jack Hartsell (Oliver Platt), his main competition.

Charlene Towne (Faye Dunaway, in a role somewhat reminiscent of her ambitious character in "Network") is their boss, playing a rather demanding yet somewhat charming woman who is a tough boss. She's sort of playing off Dern against Hartsell for her own professional benefit. The company has been acquired by a larger firm in New York, and her own advancement/survival is at stake here!

Kris Bolin proves to be an ambitious, hard-working, and extremely productive secretary who would like to become a permanent employee and advance into management. She is manipulative, yet affectionate in spite of her "husband and daughter," who lurk in the background, never to be seen. She'd like to woo Peter Derns away from the wife and son with whom he's trying desperately to become reunited. Kris' devotion to Peter includes the desire to help him advance professionally. (Which, of course, opens up permanent management jobs that she could fill!) Derns flippantly and jokingly answers her question about what she can do to help him with "Ice Jack Hartsell!" Hartsell will be only one of about a half-dozen characters who will (temporarily) stand in the way of the advancement of both Peter Derns and especially Kris Bolin!

Peter Derns has unfortunately underestimated the lengths to which Kris Bolin will go to advance both of them.

And that's as far as I'm going to go, because then we'll get into Spoilers!

Hutton handles his role well, and Boyle (IMO) steals the show!

Other faces you will recognize from TV include Dwight Schultz (H. M. Murdock from "The A-Team") as executive Roger Jasser, and Steven Weber (from "The D. A.") as competitor Brad Monroe. (BTW, to me the facial resemblance of Weber to Hutton is very pronounced.)

Now, this is a 1993 movie, filmed in color, so I turned my TV's color controls down to where I could view it in a more Noir perspective. The use of black & white camera techniques is there, and effective use is made of light vs. darkness. The music is used effectively, and has a Noirish taste to it.

I ran it up against the Noirmetrics scale and came out with 113 points of a possible 200. (Make that 123 of 200 if you watch it in B&W!)

This is a borderline Noir that incorporates some Noir attributes while not itself pretending to be a Noir. But it's surprisingly dark, and at least to me a very engaging film that's a lot of fun.

Please give it a watch! But watch it in "artificial" (TV color control) B&W at least once.....

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