Haiku Tunnel

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

Is there space in Hollywood for another pair of kooky brothers making giggly, offbeat films? Jacob and Josh Kornbluth say yes. Together they cowrote and codirected Haiku Tunnel. Their screen debut takes place in the maddening world of temporary office workers, where copy machines, misbehaving faxes, and fluorescent lighting are the way of the land. Josh Kornbluth plays himself, a temp who decides to go perm and suffers a crippling bout of procrastination in response. He simply can't bring himself to mail a batch of important letters for his boss.

The Kornbluths' attention to detail makes Haiku Tunnel vivid, funny, and familiar to anyone who's clocked time as a corporate lackey. Yet the premise builds quickly to a tiresome plateau and stays there. Josh's Woody Allen-style neurotic narration soon becomes grating. A movie in which the dramatic crux revolves around someone refusing to drop letters in the post? Haiku Tunnel was developed from a monologue, and it shows.