In Good Company (2004)
About a (Somewhat Older) Boy
Anyone who liked the Weitz Brothers
2002 film "About
a Boy" with Hugh Grant should enjoy this film,
their follow-up, for it is almost eerily reminiscent
of that earlier release with only a few minor plot
points turned upside-down, including the age of the
boy. Regardless, the basic formula is the same.
Here we have family man Dennis Quaid
as Dan, an ageing advertising executive working for
a sports magazine, warming up to Topher Grace as a
young up and comer in the business world. The film
begins with them as rivals, as Grace's Carter Duryea
comes into Dan's magazine and takes over his job as
head of ad sales for Sports America magazine. The
two clash but Dan is desperate to hang on to his job
because his wife, played by the utilitarian Marg Helgenberger,
has just recently announced that she is pregnant and
college-aged daughter Alex, graced by the presence
of Scarlett Johansson in her skin, gets accepted to
the prestigious and expensive NYU. Dan takes a position
under Carter to keep a paycheck coming in.
But things are never as simple as
they seem with the Weitz Brothers and the script for
this film is exceptionally smart. This isn't some
rehash of "Wall Street" set in the modern corporate
world. This is a film about human beings and human
emotions and the brothers wonderfully capture the
frustration, angst, joy and love in the hearts of
their characters. We are allowed much entree into
both Quaid and Grace's character's lives and their
thoughts through this fantastic script. Before long,
we come to like and empathize with both of them. There
are no villains here, except for perhaps modern corporate
culture, and no overly ridiculous dramatic postures.
Quaid and Grace develop a beautiful
chemistry and both prove just how capable and charismatic
they can be. Quaid is quite wonderful as both a businessman
with a conscience and a father with a heart. He has
to play a "father figure" in many senses of the term
here and comes to be a presence we admire and respect.
This is incredibly important to the script. Grace,
meanwhile, finds it unnecessary to break out of his
Eric Foreman mold too radically and doesn't work to
grate against the grain here to prove his merit as
an actor. Instead he evolves subtly out of his TV
character's mold to provide a young man with many
of the same attributes as his Foreman but one who
is more aggressive yet also more vulnerable. His Carter
isn't a hurt child masking his feelings by becoming
an asshole (which is how a lesser actor might play
this role) but is rather a misguided young man who
is trying desperately to fill a hole in his life.
It takes the tutelage of Dan to make his character
see that the things that he is searching for so desperately
have been within him all the time.
Smart, witty, charming and engaging,
"In Good Company" has only one flaw. The Weitz Brothers,
using the blueprint of "About a Boy" to create this
film, decide to pump up acoustic shoe-gazer tunes
in every single segue between scenes and the style
just doesn't work here. The songs don't fit. It's
as if they are trying to evoke shades of "The Graduate"
yet again and we all know that device waned the minute
"Good
Will Hunting" hit video. But this one flaw does
not a failure make. "In Good Company" is one of the
best films to be seen this year. For a film about
corporate America to have such heart and soul is a
beautiful thing indeed.
Notes:
Also with David Paymer, Philip Baker
Hall, Clark Gregg, Selma Blair, Frankie Faison, John
Cho, Ty Burrell, and Amy Aquino.
The film is written and directed
by Paul Weitz. Brother Chris is listed as a producer.
Score by Stephen Trask. A song by
David Byrne is used over the opening credits and the
Peter Gabriel tune "Salisbury Hill," which is used
way to often in film trailers, is also used here;
so its use in this film's trailer is easier to forgive.
The working title for the film was
"Synergy," a much better name that was probably rejected
by the powers-that-be as too esoteric. The chosen
title is obviously the exact opposite, being much
too bland.
Viewed at a sneak in December 2004.
Thanks to my friend Jan for helping me find out about
it. It was at the Highland 10 in Austin. I hadn't
been to that theater since it was re- opened by a
company called Entertainment Filmworks, made up of
laid-off theater managers during the downsizing of
the early 90's. The only movie I had seen there was
"Monsters, Inc."
Since then they have remodeled the place and put in
stadium seating. It is really an awesome theater now.
I did get lost trying to find the
place but since it is such a nice theater, I am sure
I will remember where it is and go more often.
There were some inane college girls
who sat behind me and had the most ridiculous conversation
about films. When one mentioned she wrote about film
for some paper and got paid I nearly choked on my
Diet Coke.
