Shooting the Breeze: In Good Company
They don't make too many movies like this any more...
'In Good Company' is one of those movies that almost escaped my attention until it was recommended earlier this week.
With a cast containing familiar names if not a selection of superstars, director Paul Weitz (who did a very good job with 'About A Boy') has created an old fashioned yet very topical movie containing a very interesting plot and - shock, horror - a functional American family!
Dennis Quaid plays Dan Foreman, a 51 year old experienced vice president of advertising whose well-adjusted life is turned upside down after his company (Sports America - a magazine) is bought up by a media mogul (Teddy K, played with relish in a cameo by Malcolm McDowell) whose global conglomerate has a hand in many companies. To add to the complications in his life, his wife announces she is pregnant again and he later finds out that his new boss is seeing his daughter Alex (played by Scarlett Johansson).
Poor Dan Foreman. Despite being good at his job, he is seen as a 'dinosaur' and is effectively demoted into a smaller role as a cog within the Teddy K empire and discovers that his new boss Carter Duryea (played brilliantly by Topher Grace) is a hot shot executive who is literally half his age with endless ideas and enthusiasm and more than a liking for coffee.
Hot-shot he might be but Carter's life is not exactly rosy. He might have the money but he is an 'emotionally guarded, anal retentive asshole', his wife of seven months has just left him and he throws himself a little too much into his work which unfortunately now includes making people in the Sports America sales office redundant as part of the Teddy K corporate plan.
After inviting himself along to Dan Foreman's house for dinner one lonely Sunday, Carter meets Dan's daughter Alex and they start seeing each other after discovering that they have more than a little in common and hit it off.
There is conflict in this film, as you might imagine, but it's good that the three principal characters have much to learn from each other and it's refreshing to see a well adjusted family setting in a grown-up modern American movie.
In Good Company is almost 2 hours long but the time flies by as the comedy drama plays out with some wonderful setups and touching lines which deal with the twin themes of age differences and relationships, and modern corporate restructuring and the effects on staff.
It's a very enjoyable way of spending a couple of hours and I think most people will find something to identify with or simply like about this film which only loses a mark with it's slightly too-neat ending.
