A 2001 Boston indie comedy. Shot on 16mm. Remastered for streaming.
Office Space meets Risky Business.
Desperate for cash to save his home, a burned-out corporate filmmaker uses the company studio at night to produce an adult version of the sexual harassment training video he’s shooting during the day.
Work hard. Stay late… Don’t get caught.
Rent $2.99 · Buy $9.99 · Also on IndiePix Unlimited.
(If a link breaks, search Working Stiff (2001) by Greg Joyce. Not the other films or the book with the same name.)
Film Threat — Alan Ng, Editor-in-Chief (July 2026): “Working Stiff is a reminder of just how much fun independent filmmaking used to be” 7.5/10
Winner: Best Feature, New Hampshire Film Festival · Best Screenplay, Rhode Island International Film Festival and Portland Festival of World Cinema (MovieMaker Magazine)
Working Stiff — official trailer
Why watch it
This is not a slick streaming original. It’s a credit-card and savings-account indie that shut down halfway through production, then came back a year later and finished on 16mm.
What people keep saying, then and now:
It’s funny without Hollywood joke-by-committee rhythm.
The romance is as memorable as the hijinks.
The corporate-training-video premise is still a great engine for comedy.
It looks like a movie shot on film, because it was.
If you like Clerks, The Brothers McMullen, or late 90s early-2000s regional indies that feel handmade, this is that lane.
Reviews
Film Threat — Alan Ng, Editor-in-Chief (July 2026)
“Working Stiff is a reminder of just how much fun independent filmmaking used to be… Will make you yearn for the days when films got made this way.”
7.5/10 · Read the full review
The Providence Journal — Michael Janusonis
“Tickles the funny bone right from its double entendre title… Guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser.”
Boston Phoenix — Peter Keough
“Wit, charm, and a playful subversiveness.”
MovieMaker Magazine
“Attendees were buzzing about Greg Joyce’s Working Stiff.”
More reviews · IMDb
The Story
Gene Meserve makes corporate training videos and is one bad month from losing his house. His boss won’t help. An investment group led by a wacky dentist will: they’ll pay him to shoot an adult film.
Gene’s day job is a sexual-harassment training video. At night, in the same studio, he shoots an adult version of the same script.
Helping him are Buddy, his sex-obsessed best friend; Margaret, his camerawoman and secret crush; and a retired adult-film star who goes by the name Fairly Gorgeous. She agrees to show him the ropes in exchange for a shot at a new line of work.
The only things standing in their way are a ticking clock, no money, Gene’s snake-in-the-grass boss, and the head of the gender equity department—who wrote the original harassment script.
A Boston movie, made the wicked hard way
Filmed in Boston (South End, Southie), Cambridge, Salem, Weston, and Peabody, with a local cast and crew.
Writer-director Greg Joyce and producer James Noonan financed it mostly on credit cards and savings. The production ran out of money, shut down, then regrouped and finished a year later. It played festivals and local New England theaters, won awards, and then sat on a shelf while Hollywood ignored it.
The film has been digitized and remastered. Streaming is the first real chance for people outside that original festival and theater circuit to find it.
Festival awards (2001)
Winner — Best Feature, New Hampshire Film Expo/Festival
Winner — Best Screenplay, Rhode Island International Film Festival
Winner — Best Screenplay, Portland Festival of World Cinema (MovieMaker Magazine)
Nominee — Best Feature, Portland Festival of World Cinema
Nominee — Best Actor, Sean Vincent Biggins
Nominee — MovieMaker Breakthrough Award, Greg Joyce
Cast
Sean Vincent Biggins as Gene Meserve
Maia Tamanakis as Margaret Sass
John P. Arnold as Mike Kelly
Paul J. D’Amato as Buddy DiMarco
Michele Markarian as Paula Rector
Leslie Lang as Fairly Gorgeous
Also featuring Bob Emery, Pamela Rogers, Charles Weinstein, Karen Hanson, Dana Lombardi, Steve Ranelli, Sarah Fraunfelder, Deb Cote, Michael Nurse, Tim O’Connor, Rob McCarthy, Jeffrey B. Phillips, Bill Mavis, Heather Donaldson, John Schnatterly, Brian White, Todd Poudrier, Kevin L. Bright, and the full Boston-area company.
Crew
Written, directed, and produced by Greg Joyce
Producer: James Noonan
Film editor / post supervisor: Steve Gentile
Director of photography: Scott DeAngelo
Composer: Claire Harding
Sound mixer: G. John Garrett, C.A.S.
Art coordinator: Mike Bell
Additional photography: Scott Crawford
Still photographer: Claire Folger
Logo: Dave Minigell
Associate producers: Anne Noonan, Beth Collins, Deb Cote, Kristen Keller
Featuring music by Autoliner, Mark Bacino, Dorian Gray (Sweden), Evelyn Forever, Ed James, The Jellybricks, Mannix, Star Collector, and Swinger.
Details
Country: United States
Year: 2001 (remastered for streaming)
Runtime: 94 minutes
Language: English (English .srt available)
Genre: Comedy
Shot on: Kodak 16mm
Aspect ratio: 4:3
Also listed in the UK and on other Filmhub channels.
Not the medical-examiner book. Not the other movies titled Working Stiff or Working Stiffs. This is the 2001 feature by Greg Joyce.
Press
Press, podcasts, and programmers: the EPK, trailer, stills, and screener links are available.
workingstiffmovie@gmail.com
CONTACT WORKING STIFF
