*** (out of ****)
Starring Dennis Quaid, Topher Grace, Scarlett Johansson, David Paymer, and Clark Gregg
Directed & written by Paul Weitz
2005
109 min PG13
I’m always impressed when someone can take heavy, unresolved, real world topics, and then make a genial, lighthearted little gem about them. Nothing too deep, but it will get you thinking, and it feels like you’ve had a nutritious good time instead of just a brainless diversion. With “In Good Company,” director Paul Weitz (“About A Boy”) tackles the recent shift in corporate culture from fat, isolated companies to lean, mean, global machines. The young eat the old because they always have. My dad has a saying that “the only thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn anything from history.”
Texan Dennis Quaid is a 52-year-old warhorse of the old way: men who work well with one another, and who entered companies expecting to stay there for their adult lives before getting a pension. Topher Grace is his new, 26-year-old boss, put in charge by the multi-national that just bought Quaid’s company. Topher is the everyman for the Generation X (or Y?) workforce: skinny, brainy, taking shelter in good-natured sarcasm, self-deprecating laughter, and pop culture allusions. “I will be your ninja assassin!” he assures his boss. Quaid has aged gracefully; this movie and “Far From Heaven” mark how much more interesting his career will be when he puts action movies and hero roles behind him. Quaid and Grace are both decent guys, trying to handle this situation with compassion and dignity, but also trying to get the upper hand on each other. The movie is all right notes between them.
“In Good Company” has a genuine office feeling, in which men need their jobs not just for money but for dignity and purpose. They cry after being fired and doing the firing. “Sports America” looks like “Sports Illustrated” but it’s really based on the much older paper “Sporting News.” I won’t spoil who has the uncredited cameo as the hypercapitalist owner of “GlobeCom,” which might as well be called “OmniOwn.” What’s unspoken about men like him is that, despite the extremely vocal patriotism of the politicians who support them, they believe representative democracy has either failed in representing the will of the people, and that it is the success of the companies owned by the ubermensch that will ensure the happiness of the masses.
The romance that grows between Grace and Quaid’s daughter (Scarlett Johansson) does not pay off in any conventional way, which actually seems realistic for a boy on the rebound and a girl testing out her new dorm. Johansson (“Lost in Translation”) is still, thankfully, a little heavier than the average actress. Our view of work is a bit more romanticized: Quaid and Topher have a heart-to-heart about how Topher should learn to believe in his work. My wife read a financial-cum-sociological book called “Your Money or Your Life” which claims that a ubiquitous American neurosis is our misconception about work giving our life meaning, when family, religion, hobbies, or education should fit that bill, while work should just pay the bills. A more daring movie, that might shift from comedy to satire or tragicomedy, might actually show the magazine going under.
Weitz assembles quite the supporting cast for the office, including Mamet regulars like Clark Gregg and David Paymer (both ends of the “don’t flinch when I’m yelling at you motherf*&#er!” conversation in “State and Main”). Also keep a look out for Frankie Faison (“13 Conversations About One Thing”) and John Cho (“Better Luck Tomorrow” and “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle”).
Finished Monday, June 13th, 2005
Copyright © 2005 Friday & Saturday Night
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