An abridged version of Jeffrey Overstreet’s feature on In Good Company is available at Paste Magazine.
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Written and directed by Paul Weitz; director of photography, Remi Adefarasin; edited by Myron Kerstein; music by Stephen Trask; production designer, William Arnold; produced by Paul Weitz and Chris Weitz; released by Universal Pictures.
106 minutes. Rated PG-13.
STARRING: Dennis Quaid (Dan), Topher Grace (Carter), Scarlett Johansson (Alex), Marg Helgenberger (Ann), David Paymer (Morty), Clark Gregg (Steckle), Philip Baker Hall (Eugene Kalb), Frankie Faison (Corwin) and Ty Burrell (Enrique Colon).
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“Another way of doing business.” That was the slogan on the top of a recent newspaper ad for a business program. What does that mean? What is this “other way”? Further investigation reveals that the school’s faculty teach more than mere skills or savvy … but also business ethics.
Shouldn’t that be a given? It should be. But it isn’t. Many business school instructors might ask, “Ethics? What’s the point of talking about ethics in business classes? Business is about success. It’s about making money. If you want to get ahead, ethics are a luxury you can’t afford.” And that’s exactly why the headlines are full of stories about corporate executives scrambling to cover their criminal tracks. People who read the newspapers are beginning to think that “dog-eat-dog” is “business as usual.”
In Good Company-the new comedy from Paul Weitz, director of About a Boy-is a comedy set against the backdrop of today’s Smackdown-oriented business world. In that context of dehumanizing pressures, an old-fashioned businessman named Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) and a young up-and-comer face named Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) are put to the test. They’re challenged to re-examine their values and their goals, both in the office and at home. In the era of Enron, Martha Stewart, and other corporate scandals, here’s a movie that knows Good Business involves Good Ethics. But it also knows that true success requires a balance between business and family commitments.
And that’s not as deep as it goes. In Good Company also explores the way that change can seem threatening, and how difficult it can be to adapt without losing your integrity or killing your conscience. Further, it acknowledges the troubling trend of businesses that have no center, but just seem to grow, absorbing all manner of smaller operations just because they can.
Kudos to Weitz for taking on so much in a single comedy. He’s not able to carry it off without some rather preachy moments and some unconvincing plot twists, but his movie has far more pros than cons. In Good Company won’t make many 2004 Top Ten lists, but it is a pleasant way to spend 106 minutes, well worth the price of a matinee, and full of small insights that are worth discussing afterward.
Carter, a young and ambitious business mogul, stares at a goldfish swimming in circles in a bowl, and his mournful gaze shows that he can relate-he’s trapped himself in a glass world of demoralizing business practices in an effort to be successful. He realizes that, while he’s gaining responsibility and status, he’s stuck in a circuit that will lead him nowhere. There’s nothing in this particular fishbowl that will satiate his deeper longings or fix his failing marriage. The film follows Carter’s journey of coming to understand what he lacks and what he needs.
When Carter takes a new position as the head of marketing for Sports America (a movieland clone of Sports Illustrated), he’s welcomed with fear, trembling, and cold shoulders. This is an office of seasoned professionals, and they’re not too happy that some of their coworkers are being laid off, nor that Dan, a 50-something veteran of the business, is being displaced by a hotshot with no experience.
Dan built business relationships with handshakes and sincere conversation rather than high pressure sales tactics. His values don’t show up on Carter’s radar. But as Dan begrudgingly consents to work for Carter in order to keep his job, the newcomer begins to understand there is an alternative way of living and working, a fulfilling lifestyle that represents everything missing in his own life.
Like the surrogate parent/child relationships in The Life Aquatic and Million Dollar Baby, these two men clearly need each other. Dan, clinging to “the old fashioned way,” doesn’t yet see the rewards that can come from weathering change and being open to new relationships. He needs to know that just because he’s older doesn’t mean he’s washed up; he has something valuable to contribute to this new era, which, without his values, would proceed like a runaway train, making things more and more unpleasant for those on board. Carter’s swimming with sharks when what he needs is to be surrounded by a loving family … like Dan’s. Soon, he begins secretly dating (and foolishly sleeping with) Dan’s daughter, hoping to absorb some of that love. When Dan speaks with a “fatherly” tone with his new boss, Carter responds, “Nobody has ever taken the time to give me a hard time before!”
But both of them are at risk when the big shark comes around. Teddy K (Malcolm Macdowell), the megalomaniac who runs the uber-corporation Globecom, shows up late in the film to give his new employees a maddening, New-Agey pep talk. This ego-monster, who basically wants a company that owns and does everything, stands for the greed machine that drives so many corporations to lose all identity and purpose and merely acquire whatever they can. Teddy K.’s disciple, Steckle (Clark Gregg), is “grooming” Carter for the big time, but it’s clear that there’s no meaning beyond money down that path.
Steckle’s blank, cold, murderous stare would be chilling if he, like Teddy K., weren’t played with over-the-top villainy. The two are so one-dimensional, they threaten to throw the film out of its otherwise believable balance.
And there’s another episode that causes the film to stumble. Dan’s daughter (Alex), a good family girl who adores her father, suddenly decides to seduce a complete loser. The decision seems abrupt, arbitrary, and unlikely. It’s especially unfortunate when the inevitable father/daughter confrontation comes, and Dad is the one who backs down and apologizes. Any young woman willing to give herself up that hastily deserves to be grounded for a good long while, whether she’s 16 or 35! This is one of those plot twists that affirms our desires to live free without consequences, but which steers us toward disaster. Furthermore, it’s hard to understand why Alex is so anxious to reject the example of her “functional family.” Sure, it’s an important plot point that propels us toward a cathartic clash between Dan and her suitor, but it doesn’t feel plausible. For a moment we’re jarred out of naturalistic storytelling and thrust into movieland.
Nevertheless, the cast does such good work here that the movie overcomes its weaknesses. Kudos to Topher Grace, who gives a breakthrough performance that will earn him opportunities for many years to come. Forget That 70′s Show. Grace deserves a promotion to the ranks of comedy’s leading men. He and Dennis Quaid, who delivers another in a series of admirable, warm, generous performances, are a convincing, compelling team. They develop an easy, relaxed chemistry, so that we actually believe that they could be good friends and good colleagues. They’re given good support by veterans like Phillip Baker Hall (Magnolia) as one of Sports America’s customers and David Paymer as Dan’s sensitive colleague. And it’s nice to see Marg Helgenberger of TV’s C.S.I. back on the big screen for the first time since Erin Brockovich, five years ago!
Weitz, who made the first American Pie film with his brother Chris, as well as the more sophisticated (and more mature) critical favorite About a Boy, continues to grow and exercise restraint, giving us stories about real people in believable situations. Hopefully he’s put irresponsible teen sex comedies behind him forever-American Pie seemed to indicate that love is about more than sex, but the movie still contained plenty of fodder for the fantasy lives of teen viewers, encouraging them toward exactly the opposite conclusion. On the subject of business, competition, and the drive for success, Weitz clearly knows how guys work, how they lie, and how they compromise. In Good Company shows us what real success is all about.
It’s worth noting that Weitz’s movie arrives during a trend of films that question the difference between animal behavior and “higher” behavior, the call of conscience. Kinsey celebrated a man who told us that we shouldn’t feel ashamed to behave like animals and follow our instincts no matter what the lessons of tradition or the higher ideals of religion had to say about it. Collateral compared a man without a conscience to a “lone wolf” living outside of a moral framework. Closer and We Don’t Live Here Anymore showed the emptiness of those who live like apes and pursue happiness through what “comes naturally” rather than pursuing deeper fulfillment through sacrifice, selflessness, and commitment.
The office dynamics of In Good Company should be familiar to anybody who has ever observed or participated in the “animal behavior” of contemporary business. (Or perhaps you’ve seen a few episodes of TV’s The Apprentice.) Hopefully it will tweak the conscience of a viewer who overlooks the welfare of his employees or coworkers.
Dan Foreman is a dying breed–a man who cares about others, and who prioritizes integrity, trust, and honor. It’s interesting that you find such a man in the context of a traditional family, practicing what popular culture seems to think is just unnecessary, old-fashioned, “right-wing,” suspect, or merely the remnants of an ignorant time. Perhaps the fact that Carter is so instinctively drawn to a conventional family suggests that family is more than just a preference, more than just a social convention. Perhaps it indicates that human beings like you and me are designed to enjoy that kind of structure … and, in fact, to flourish in it.
This would, however, reverse a slogan from one of 2004′s dramatic features–indeed, “Family is not whatever you want it to be.”
Talking with Dennis Quaid and Topher Grace
When the filmmakers met with the press in L.A. recently, I asked Weitz to comment on Carter’s “animal behavior” and the higher, more human quality of the life that appeals to him. He responded, “Carter is into the surface aspect of things because that is all that he can see. He didn’t grow up in a happy family situation.”
When I asked Topher Grace for his perspective on Carter’s attraction to Dan’s family, he replied, “Carter’s got everything on paper. His parents were both absent. But he’s got the job, and the right car, and the right wife, and the right house. Once he goes to [Dan Foreman's] house, he starts to see something that he really wants but doesn’t know how to get. I think he’s dating Dan’s daughter as a consolation prize to being in the family. But he would trade it all in just to be the fifth member of the family.”
”What happens in the relationship between [Dan and Carter] … I think it’s by design,” Dennis Quaid told me. “[Dan's] a guy with two daughters, and you’re rooting for him to have a son. And … he’s gained a son in his relationship with Topher’s character.”
Describing Carter’s unhealthy business tactics, Grace echoes a lesson he learned from his own dad: “Having more energy doesn’t mean you’re smarter.”