According to IMDB.com, there have been two films called Outsourced released in the past year — with a third planned for 2008. If anything, it indicates that vanishing jobs and resentment among US workers provides fertile ground for filmmakers. Surprisingly, director John Jeffcoat’s take on the topic comes as a modest romantic comedy.
Todd Anderson (played by Josh Hamilton) is a loyal office drone at a US-based novelty gifts company. His loyalty is tested after his department is outsourced to India and he is put in charge of training his replacement.
After struggling with weeks of culture shock and homesickness upon his arrival, he manages to slowly learn from his co-workers and open himself to the realities of a changing global economy, and finds romance with his co-worker Asha (Ayesha Dharker) along the way.
Sounds predictable? In a way, it is. Though Outsourced is a typical fish-out-of-water story on the surface, it draws most of its humor from very personal moments, rather than the broad Office Space-style satire that would be expected with a film like this. And though it’s not explored as much as it could have been, the implications of Todd and Asha’s interracial romance also provides subtle moments of humor.
Those moments of evolving friendship and romance are the most fascinating and real, and give Outsourced — as well as the topic of outsourcing — the human perspective that is so often lacks.
– Keidra Chaney
Outsourced
Director: John Jeffcoat
98 Minutes, ShadowCatcher Entertainment
Opens 9/28/07 in limited US release
Outsourced: www.outsourcedthemovie.com
ShadowCatcher: www.shadowcatcherent.com