Originally published 1/20/05
In Good Company
Director: Paul Weitz
Writer: Paul Weitz
Producers: Chris Weitz, Paul Weitz
Stars: Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace, Scarlett Johansson, Marg Helgenberger, Clark Gregg, David Paymer
In Good Company is built on a simple premise – that buying things is easy, and making things is hard, and that in the end the latter provides a more lasting satisfaction. It demonstrates this to us on both a personal and professional level, contrasting the story of a struggling family man against a lonely over-achiever, and a company with a clear and simple purpose versus a conglomerate built on a harebrained religion of acquisitions, mass-firings, and “synergy”.
In this world Paul Weitz, who co-wrote and co-directed the immensely charming About a Boy with brother Chris but here flies solo, wants to craft another warm comedy about the unusual moderm superfamilial support groups we form. But in this new environment, and without the strong underlying support of the source material Boy had, the result is likable enough but too smoothed over and lacking in human charms.
“Synergy” is the magic wand for Carter Duryea (Topher Grace), who gazes upon the privileged and wealthy few above him at Globecon and hopes (like a Scientologist, really) to ascend into their blessed, superhuman ranks. That he already, at 26, has wealth, prestige, and Selma Blair for a wife (at least for the moment) couldn’t possibly satisfy him.
He’s never learned any particular trade, simply the exercise of a few tricks – sell product to anyone, even if they don’t need or really want it (his claim to fame is a cell phone geared towards toddlers); cut costs by firing anyone with a high salary (coincidentally, anyone older and more experienced) and cross-promote one Globecon product with another whether there’s reason or rhyme to it or not. When a veteran liquor company ad rep is introduced to a young turk from a shoe company, the ad rep grumbles “Just what we need, a bunch of drunk people running.”
So while Carter is privately scared to pieces over the big-time assignment he’s just won – taking over ad sales for a Sports Illustrated-esque magazine Globecon has purchased, he believes that with enough coffee, MBA buzzwords, Sunday meetings, and “synergy”, he can succeed and continue upwards. And that’s when he meets Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid).
Foreman is a year older than Carter’s father, and he’s been selling advertising at this magazine since Carter was in kindergarten. And Carter’s just taken his job and his office, but despite all the expected anger and tension, something unspoken between the two clicks. For reasons he cannot yet plumb, the new young boss doesn’t downsize this pricey veteran, but keeps him on as his “wingman”.
Foreman can’t help but see this kid needs something in his life, but also can’t forget that the “kid” has the power to put him out on the sidewalk. Throw in Foreman’s newly pregnant wife (Marg Helgenberger) and a daughter (Scarlett Johansson) who’s not only moving out to attend NYU, but is charmed by and attracted to the rudderless Carter, and it’s no wonder Foreman looks so perpetually anxious.
Sometimes the movie is about Foreman’s mounting anxiety and the way pressure on all sides is making him lose his aw-shucks-itude. Sometimes it’s about Carter, who with no family structure of his own gloms too eagerly and longingly onto Foreman’s.
And sometimes it’s about the Globecon culture and its messianic CEO Teddy Kay, played zestfully in an un-billed cameo by Malcolm McDowell. Bit by bit it chips away at the trusting family atmosphere of the magazine while never seeming to pay much attention to the content. And really, who cares when there’s more companies out there to acquire? The mindset of the ideal Globecon go-getter, we see, calls for the same egomania and needle-spiking testosterone as a street gang. But whereas street gangs fight over intersections, this gang fights over assets that represent the livelihood of hundreds of thousands.
A movie can certainly be about all of this at once if it so wishes, but it’s in the transitions that Weitz loses his grip. Scenes feel rushed through and under-examined, and the heart of them remains undiscovered. Character moments that could cause delight simply pass on by, and several scenes that seem designed to grow the relationship between Boss and Mentor veer away from their goal and end up knocking us back towards some lesser subplot. In Good Company seems afraid to scare us too badly, and so what could have been truly lovable is instead simply genial and harmless.
Grace continues making the transition from small screen to large deftly, he calls upon some of the same glib tunnel vision he brought to his amoral preppie rat in Traffic, and makes great hay out of Carter’s clumsy attempts to bring himself happiness. Quaid is uncharacteristically adrift, sometimes overworking his facial muscles as if he’s decided he’s in a farce, and others settling for the worried sympathy of light drama. His ability to restrain his natural ruggedness well serves his portrait of middle-aged panic, but the overall effect of Weitz’ storytelling indecisiveness reflects poorly on Quaid, whose character should be our emotional anchor.
The movie has a lot to say about American corporate culture of the 21st century, and in case you don’t get it a Big Speech is provided. How necessary this is from a plot perspective is debatable to say the least, but it does undeniably become more about what it’s Saying then about it’s actual importance to what’s unfolding on screen, or likelihood that in the real world they’d ever be allowed to finish Saying it.
This is a dangerous business, because there is a distinct difference in the way an audience relates to a) a debate about whether mega-mergers are a perversion of capitalism that lead to more harm than good, and b) a middle-aged man with a pregnant wife afraid of losing his job. I don’t mind the stimulation of the former, but most of the time, we’re in the theatres for stuff like the latter.