The Temp

Alternate titles abound for this latest entry in the female psycho genre: The Hand That Types the Letters, Single White Secretary, Fatal Dictation. Like her nutso predecessors, the Kelly Girl from Hell in The Temp terrorizes others with a method in her madness; a Reagan-era career gal, she takes out the opposition, one rung at a time, on her way up the corporate ladder. As played by Twin Peaks alumna Boyle, the character is short on three-dimensionality but long on weirdness -- one day she comes to the office wearing a traditional woman's suit, the next she looks like a hooker auditioning for Dance Fever. Most of the time, director Holland and screenwriter Keven Falls keep things in the proper tongue-in-cheek perspective and -- with the exception of an unfortunate paper shredder incident -- keep the gore to a minimum. As The Temp progresses, however, they lose control of the increasingly silly narrative, even resorting to that old “late night emergency at the bakery” trick as a plot device. The kitsch highlight of The Temp comes in the form of Dunaway, who plays a no-nonsense corporate executive given to saying things like “I've had more knives stuck in me than Julius Caesar.” (From the looks of the unnatural tautness in her face, it would seem that most of those knives belonged to a plastic surgeon.) Dunaway plays the role with such false bravado that any minute you expect her to blurt out “Don't fuck with me, fellas!” like the best of corporate executives. It's performances like hers that make even bad movies perversely worthwhile.