The Boss of It All

Hilarious and bizarre office sitcom.

Lars Von Trier again wears his farce on his sleeve here, begging the viewer (literally) to not take his little comedy movie too seriously. Of course this only makes us try to extract more meaning than we usually would. It is this egotistical rebellion/contrarianism that the film builds its wickedly funny thesis around. On modes of mass control and our obsession with perception.

(yonetmen, bir roportajinda bu film ile ilgili "tüm amacim; tosun pasa alegorisi yapmakti?" dedi. benimse: tum noktalama isaretlerini kusursuzca kullanmakti...)!

This movie is hilarious. The premise is bizarre but once accepted creates one amusing situation after another until Trier has taken the gimmick to such an extreme the movie might as well be titled "The Boss of The Boss of It All". And I don't mean gimmick in a pejorative sense; It's riddled with potshots at movie-making and empty-suit corporatism and there's never a dull moment. I've noticed a lot of users saying they didn't laugh. Well, I laughed out loud more times than I could count.

Von Trier's funniest since... well, Riget, I suppose. A businessman has invented a CEO to blame unpopular decisions on, but now he's going to sell the company and so he hires an actor to pose as the CEO and deliver the news. But since the businessman isn't a very good script writer or director, the actor fins himself having to improvise... works both as a meta-comedy ("The objective of today's comedy is to expose the comedy") and as a drama about free will and laying the blame on a higher power.

Lars Von Trier's most atypical film; a comedy about the cowardly owner of a tech company who hires an out-of-work actor to play the "boss of it all", a fictional man cited in all of his business decisions. Farcical complications ensue. Von Trier takes pleasure in executing the mechanics of farce (his addresses to the audience on his intentions for the film are gems), and while the farcical edge is blunted in the translation, you can tell that, for Danskophones, it is truly hilarious.

"Von Trier is using irrational modes of expression to comment not only on his own modus operandi as a moralist and a filmmaker but the enterprise of making movies and directing actors in them." - Ed Gonzalez

An extremely farcical farce in which von Trier seems to deliberately farce it up beyond all expectations in order to antagonise the viewer, which in some twisted way makes the farcicality all the more clever and knowing, the more annoying it becomes. Even though there's plenty to dislike in it - the silences, the awkwardness, the lies, the visual style and misframed shots - it ends up being a rather nifty piece of entertainment.

Not an easy comedy, for sure! It is just great though - from the basic idea of the plot to the way how it is developed. Characters are truly great and bizarre, but I would like to see some relationships explored a bit further. It is so absurd and bizarre that one can't really hate it, though it loses some energy at one point. I recommend it

Aside from whatever Trier is doing with the editing, this works very well.

very funny and original story

One of the most genuinely bizarre films I've seen in a long time. Like an alien trying to make a wacky office comedy. The computer-generated camera angles are brain-bending. I guess in fairness some of the bafflement is attributable to a language barrier.

Compulsive viewing

Viewed September 30, 2017.

In the overabundance of bureaucratic comedies, Von Trier's The Boss of It All is predictably irreverent in its predictability. Audience winking and editing ill-suited to this dry humor sabotage a solid premise for an ignoble, possibly pretentious meta goal. It's more "clever" than funny, but is it really? The satire being as bland as it is, being funny would've been much preferred. The narrative's poorly placed exposition and lackluster detailing of characters ruins joke setups and any heart.

När von Trier gör en komedi så väljer han ju självklart att göra en ganska egensinnig film. Filmen innehåller en del eleganta vändningar och von Triers trix är som vanligt snygga och överraskande. Men tempot är lite väl lågt emellanåt och i slutändan är det ju frågan om filmen handlar om nånting som helst. Sammanfattningsvis skulle jag vilja ge betyget 3,5 men jag väljer att vara generös. Utslagsgivande är von Triers hejdlösa drift med danskarna och det danska som inte vem

More clever than funny, though Gantzler has some rather funny expressions and silent comedy stuff, and Jens Albinus gives a remarkably understated performance. THe rest of the film I found a little confusing and oddly paced - the disorientating camerawork and sound added to this effect, which I'm willing to take as being entirely intentional. It's a formal experiment, and the hypothesis is "I'm going to dare my audience to laugh while I aggravate them". Trier has done this better elsewhere.

Business is acting and acting is business. Von Trier's office satire plays like a smarter version of Office Space, offering none of the comforting platitudes that Judge's film did about the harsh realities of modern working life. The jump cuts were distracting and unnecessary though, and the meta aspects were less successful than the direct attempts at comedy. The ending is a real head-scratcher in the sense that it both undermines and reinforces the scenes that came before it.

Like a slow version of Ricky Gervais' The Office enhanced with light meta-elements.

an absurd meta-meta-comedy that is very amusing mostly, though not hilarious.

74.000

Whenever I recommend anyone where to start with Trier, I mention this movie. It is eaily his most accessible and it will build you up enough goodwill to at least poke a hole at the rest of his oeuvre.

starts off fresh and fun. ends up losing some of the momentum. very bizarre.

Huh? What's this? A Lars von Trier comedy? Doesn't seem right, does it? I was certainly hesitant going in. I did like this film though. It was a comedy, but not really a 'laugh out loud' one. It was a much more quirky, subtle type of comedy. It wasn't brilliant, but I found it watchable.

I never saw an comedy, which is so unfunny like this one. I have to admit, that I'm not the comedian guy, but it was an absolutly disappointing von Trier movie, despite the fact that von Trier is one of my favorite directors. And at the end: I don't like the idea of random computer generated camera and editing!

Laugh, laugh, vomit. Laugh, laugh, vomit. Right untill the end.

Good idea, but I found it too irregular and some parts difficult to understand. And well, I usually don't love Trier "innovations".

The first time I saw this I somehow missed Lars von Trier's name on it, so any "meta" commentary on his reputation or process was lost on me, but it was still reasonably funny, certainly considering the so-so premise (out-of-control method actor? Wacky!!!!), bizarre framing gimmick, and language barrier.

nah...

Irriterende dårlig og alligevel underholdende. Jeg kan ikke definere kvaliteten...

Weird, but compelling.

Good Movie

Very amusing and unusual comedy. The unique "automatic" method of filming suits the material and setting well.