It happens all the time in all manner of businesses, from Hollywood backlots to sports fields to corporate boardrooms: seasoned, talented veteran with plenty of good years left gets pushed to the side in favor of hotshot rookie with none of the experience but all of the flash and promise. Our culture has never been one to venerate our elders. We’re youth-obsessed: we fight nature to keep ourselves looking young, we encourage our children to grow up faster and faster and faster, we favor the energy of smooth skin over the wisdom of wrinkles.
And such it is in Paul Weitz’ comedy
| In Good Company (2004) | |
| Grade: A- | |
| Written and Directed By: | Paul Weitz |
|---|---|
| Starring: | Dennis Quaid Topher Grace Scarlet Johansson |
| Studio: | Universal |
Grace shows tremendous poise in a difficult role: the audience has to like him and root for him even as he unintentioally makes Dan hate him, a feat which is made all the more difficult because we also like and sympathize with Dan. Grace has a naturally self-effacing quality to him which makes it easier to digest the materialistic, self-absorbed Carter, who’s almost always in salesman mode–even when his wife’s leaving him. The only person Carter feels able to open up around is the radiant college student Alex (the ever-wonderful
Dan Foreman proves to be a perfect kind of role for the fifty-year-old version of Quaid. His perpertually boyish charm gets put to good use as a veteran salesman, one who understands that sales–and leadership–is as much about managing the relationships between people as it is any sort of corporate back-scratching. One can imagine finding it difficult to turn down a salesman like Dan Foreman, especially when he’s equipped with The Trademark Dennis Quaid Smile.
Dan’s character really struck close to home for me…perhaps a little too much so. Like Dan, I worry about one day being replaced in my job by some kid fresh out of college (though I’m more worried about fighting off kids able to my job for half the cost). Like Dan, I have two daughters (who happen to be of about the same relative ages as Alex and Jana), and I’ll be about Dan’s age when the older of my two girls (hopefully) goes off to college. And also like Dan, I’m overprotective of my kids: the look of distress on Dan’s face as he leaves Alex by herself at her college dorm for the first time was just about heartbreaking for me. And that need to shelter and protect his daughter was why I thought the movie’s ending hit just a little bit of an off note.
I’m not sure Dan’s acceptance of Carter as a “substitute son” was entirely earned. While Carter definitely grows as a person, largely thanks to Dan’s influence, and Dan most definitely notices and appreciates that growth, I don’t know if it was enough to justify Dan’s change of heart–especially since Carter had been sleeping with Dan’s daughter. Given just how overprotective Dan feels toward his girls, I think it would have taken much, much more for Carter to get past the defenses Dan would’ve thrown in his way. While I appreciated the ending and could completely accept Carter’s decision, I simply didn’t buy Dan still allowing Carter to be part of his life; Dan might not have wished Carter any ill will, but I honestly think that would have been the extent of the relationship.
That might be putting myself a little too much in the movie, however. Overall, the characters of
I thought this was a great movie that really could’ve taken two separate roads but ended up walking between them both. The first road is the funny business plot and the second, the more intimate/ relationship plot.
Throughout the movie we start to relate to each the characters and really feel what they are like and how they feel about each other. However, I think the end of the movie breaks our entire concept of what has been built up about each of the characters.
The build up of our relationship with each character and then the ultimate disappointment of each of them not truly being what we thought they were is very dissatisfying and leaves the audience feeling tricked and jaded.
Alex I see the first glimpse of this in our relationship with the daughter, Alex. She is beautiful and smart and we really start to love her and all her sweetness – when suddenly she “seducesâ€? Carter in a way that makes us conclude that she has done this before and probably more than once or twice.
We feel betrayed for her father who is so proud of her and would be terribly hurt if he knew she was this way and had done these things. And thus, partially breaking the joy we find in the wonderful father/daughter relationship that was established.
Now, even through this betrayal we could still forgive her because she seems to justify her actions by appearing to be falling in love with Carter later on. When Carter finally tells her that he loves her and then she tells him she doesn’t want to see him anymore…..we really want to hate her because poor Carter is so hurt – but we can see how much Carter still loves her and so again we can feel a sense of forgiveness IF it all works out in the ending.
Mark (played by Clark Gregg) He is the ultimate “focus on moving up� type of guy. Really cocky attitude, with a big ego and extremely too psyched about Teddy K (the Globelcom CEO). When he finally is knocked down by losing his job he immediately changes from one extreme to another (which I find to be completely unbelievable). The character that was presented to us would have been either hysterically crying or throwing a complete temper tantrum. His calm demeanor just did not fit his character.
Dan This character was the most obvious and biggest disappointment. We come to know (and love) Dan as being a caring, loving father and husband, the type of boss that would give the shirt off his back to employees as well as to his clients. However, when he finds out that Carter (and Mark) lost their jobs and that he gets his old one back – he simply says “sorry you lost your jobs� and walks away.
This taking place right after Carter stood up for Dan when he was about to be fired by Mark – after Carter said “If you fire him you will have to fire meâ€? and after they built a relationship through the sale they went out to get together.
This was the most “out of character� move I have ever seen. The Dan that we got to know and love would have taken him home, talked over ideas, offered him a job right then and there – not a month later!!
So now that we had this downfall of disappointments it is a good script’s job to bring the audience back up from the sorrow we feel. We feel sad about Alex dumping Carter but have hope and long for them to reunite. We feel sad that Carter lost his job but have hope and long for him to be hired by Dan or find another job doing something meaningful.
We, the audience are hurting for Carter. He had no father, his wife cheated on him and divorced him, he lost his new love and lost his job. We need the good guy to win in the end – we need a happy ending. Yet, what did we get? We got a man who finally realized that running outside is way nicer than running on a treadmill.
We were looking for Carter to get what he wanted all along: the wedding – the business relationship – the picket fence home down the street, the thanksgiving dinner with kids! That is what he wanted all along and that is what we, the audience, wanted for him. Receiving less was just… disappointing.
Overall this was a wonderful and beautiful movie with fantastic actors who did phenomenal jobs, (I personally can’t wait to see Topher in more films!) but the whole movie was ruined by a sloppy and unfulfilling ending.