The Boss of it All (Direktøren for det hele)2007
The Boss of it All (Direktøren for det hele) (2007)
TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE
Critic Consensus: Director Lars von Trier ditches the pretensions but keeps his misanthropy in The Boss of it All, a surprisingly sharp and witty comedy about office life gone haywire.
The Boss of it All (Direktøren for det hele) Photos
Movie Info
Cast
as Kristoffer
as Ravn
as Finnur

as Interpreter
as Lise

as Nalle

as Heidi A.
as Gorm
as Mette
as Spencer
as Kisser

as Jokumsen
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Critic Reviews for The Boss of it All (Direktøren for det hele)
All Critics (67) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (50) | Rotten (17) | DVD (4)
A bit of a shambles, but perhaps in its lack of von Trier's usual pretensions will lie the charm of this film for some.

Von Trier has evidently been watching The Office, and replicates both its soulless setting and fly-on-the-desk camera-style, not to mention the Brentian fear of being unpopular.

The script and story are what matter. They are as neat and interlocked as nail scissors. They are also grimly funny.

Von Trier may be commenting on the mechanical, dehumanised nature of corporate decision-making, or of Hollywood filmmaking. Maybe he's just being whimsical. It's always hard to tell with this joker-provocateur. And always completely fascinating.

In some ways, I enjoyed this movie more than any of his features, and yet it's sad that he has drawn in his horns so much.

Despite roguish interventions from Von Trier himself (in voiceover, and on screen), the movie has more in common with Working Girl and Trading Places than anything from Europe's leading auteur. Which, it seems, is a lucky, liberating thing.
Audience Reviews for The Boss of it All (Direktøren for det hele)
I think The Boss of it All is the only von Trier film I truly dislike. Breaking the Waves was another, initially, and though I definitely still have my misgivings about it a second viewing sort of brought me around on the film's merits. This is a marginally clever treatment of viewership and an unconventional look at comedy in general, but in the scope of his filmography I don't think it really offers anything new. The idea of him creating a comedy so heavily reliant on cliche that he himself has to apologize through narration for the film is sort of interesting, but the novelty doesn't sustain 98 minutes' worth of viewing. It's funny how intent can so radically change a comedy's reception. This is, all told, the most generic office comedy of errors you could possibly imagine, and some people seem to think it's exceptionally funny. It's really not even remotely on its own terms, with von Trier's lampshading providing the only real chuckles, and even that isn't all that inspired. Not recommended, unless you're hellbent on watching all of his films.
Super Reviewer
Pretentious & unengaging, Comedy,Von Trier style

Super Reviewer
Disappointing update to the Dogme school restrictions with an automavision shooting system. Von Trier may have found it an interesting technical exercise but it added nothing to the format for me. The sense of humor is assumably hilarious in Denmark but it didn't tickle me. The plot loses its tenuous grip on reality altogether at the end.

Super Reviewer
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