15 January 2005---Movie Review---The First--(In Good Company)

Taken from that other webblog I have, I have had the chance to do a movie review. Can you believe it? I am a movie critic! Through hearing about it on Hugh Hewitt's talk radio program and his own increasingly well-known blog (He has written the first definitive book on blogging..called, appropriately, Blog, I found out about Grace Hill Productions, and the movie In Good Company. Grace Hill made a neat promotional, allowing bloggers to attend a preview screening free if I wrote a review of the movie in my blog. That I have done. Gail and I were able to get to go to an advanced preview screening Thursday night in La Jolla, the night before it opened in U.S. theatres on Friday night (just passed).

So, see below, the first movie review I have ever done. I enjoyed it. I hope you did, too.


Dudes! This movie rocks! I admit that this may be rather an audacious introduction to a movie that, frankly has received some pretty mixed reviews. But last night, at an advanced showing of IN GOOD COMPANY (www.ingoodcompanymovie.com), I saw once again how a movie can be romantic, funny, even a little sexy, without having to throw in tons of sleaze. Yes, I read the Style section columnist of The Washington Post, Ann Hornaday, as well as the Weekend section columnist for The Post, in yesterday's Post Online (www.washingtonpost.com) (free registration required). Ms Hornaday caustically referred to COMPANY as an "occasionally phlegmatic pastiche of cliches and dull encounters." In other words, she thought it sucked. Well, Ms. Hornaday, it is I and the Post's Weekend's Desson Thompson who think that it's your opinion that sucks, as his reaction to COMPANY WAS, "You can't help liking it, no matter how much or little you laugh."

Such was the reaction to the Paul & Chris Weitz co-directed film from Universal Pictures and Grace Hill Productions, which was co-produced by Rodney Leiber and Andrew Miano. The Weitz brothers have been Academy Award recipients for Best Adaptive Screenplay (ABOUT A BOY), and have directed numerous other film projects.And the cast was simply first rate: Dennis Quaid (Far From Heaven, The Rookie, The Alamo, The Day After Tomorrow), Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation), Topher Grace (TV's, "That 70s Show", Traffic), Marg Helgenberger (TV's "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation", Erin Brockovich), Academy Award nominee David Paymer (Mr. Saturday Night, Quiz Show), and Philip Baker Hall (Boogie Nights, Top Eight), created an exquisitely balanced collection of actors.

They completely created a situation that brought forward, simultaneously, several themes that expose part of the underbelly of what is sorely lacking in American culture: the shallow obsession of style over substance in business and culture, a legacy of sexual irresponsibility coming home to roost, the exchange of materialism over morality, the myopic embrace of high technology over good sense in the New Economy, the loss of loyalty and integrity, and the desperate need and, in the hearts of Generation Y (and some Xers), the realization, that natural ability, intelligence, and youthful passion needs the knowledge, stability, and at last, heart that comes from the experience retained by decent people who have lived life. In other words----Hallelujah! Father Knows Best again! He may be a little dinged up for the road, but American culture is still relearning that, yes, a family and its youth are incomplete without (here it comes, blue staters!)---Fathers and Mothers! I've noticed it coming more in some of the Mel Gibson pre-Passion genre, such as The Patriot, We Were Soldiers, and even What Do Women Want. In Good Company keeps the truth coming through the cinema, which seems to be the substitute for pastors and teachers nowadays.

Sam Foreman (Quaid), is a top New York advertising executive for a sports magazine, whose life revolves around his work with a top-notch, highly loyal (and profitable) staff, and his imperfect but highly loving wife Ann (Helgenberger) and two daughters, one of whom is dealing with boyfriends and high school, and the eldest, Alex (Johansson), has just been accepted to transfer from SUNY to NYU, the prestige of the upward move is matched by its increase in expense. The gracefulness of the pace of this baby-boomer-led family is smashed by two occurrences: Ann's pregnancy at 50, and the corporate takeover of the parent comporation of Sam's company by a high-tech buccaneer. On top of it, that buccanneer proceeds to place a 26-yr.old executive, Carter Duryea (Grace) in charge of Sam's advertising division, with Sam as his "wingman" and with a supervisory boss from the takeover company putting intense demands for both increased revenue and decreased employees. The move of placing a brilliant, but woefully inexperienced man half his age in his position, and even into his office rankles Sam no end, and creates the kind of corporate pandemonium that happens every day in the world of suits and Vaio laptops.

In the meantime, Carter's own life is full of holes. His appointment to a level far beyond his present level of developed competency has him alternating between extreme ego rush and complete panic. Furthermore, his wife of seven months announces that she has had enough of his workaholism and walks out. The divorce plunges Carter into a depression due to the fact that his own complete non-functional family life (father deserted at 4, mom a 60s flower child never grown up) leaves him effectively abandoned. Into that void walks the Foreman family, led both by Sam and Carter's chance meeting of Alex, which has them falling for what may eventually be love by two young people who aren't sure how to go about it. Of course, thanks to this culture, Alex knows more about how to sexually seduce Carter than how to love him, and Carter surprises her by actually falling for her first. All this is completely without the knowledge of Sam, who can't understand why Alex isn't calling her dad every day, as he had been used to since she was a small child.

In the meantime, Carter, hungry for a family, terribly alone in his cold, modern "architecture" mansion, moves into a downtown apartment, which he can't stand staying in alone, and starts inviting himself over to Sam's house for dinner. It's a subtle but priceless capture of the contrast of Sam's and Carter's life in the two homes, with Sam's "Father of the Bride"-like suburban home exuding human warmth and security as opposed to Carter's manse. Also a master stroke by the screenplayers was the scene where Carter, just anointed an heir apparent to big Tommy K (the big corporate mogul)'s corporate inner circle, gets a deluxe blue Porsche. Carter's totally swept up in the ego-feeder of the moment, when the front end is smacked by an SUV (that red state family fav). Could we be seeing symbolic expressions of what happened in November? I give myself over to the pleasure of the thought.

The struggle of the excesses of Old over New Economy continued in situations such as the loss of Sam's best account due to a conflict between Tommy K and a rival mogul, who owns the corporation of which Sam's customer is a subsidiary. The two men's bewilderment over the forced separation of a highly profitable relationship highlights the inanity of the corporate world centered in New York. Sam's staff get Knicks game tickets at Madison Square Garden (on of the hottest in all of sports) taken away, and replaced by Carter with a reception at a gangsta hip-hop concert. And one-by-one, Sam's staff is decimated by the irrational cutbacks demanded from above, which slash into profitability, too.

The company, and young Carter (and Alex) are saved, in the end by Sam. He confronts their lack of integrity as any good father would do, or at least should, complete with a staredown of the daughter, and one effective right hook to Carter's eye, in an uptown Manhattan restaurant. Quaid is the hero, and acts like the everyman-Texas father that makes this unlikely morality tale work so well. Modern fathers work very well on cinema, as in real life, when, as here, while showing their flaws, their wrinkles, and their lost dunking ability (complete with shoulder separation), they also show both kindness, compassion, and an ability to elicit with a well-turned question both contrition (which he gets from Alex) and the expose of a charlatan (which he does to Tommy K when he visits the sports magazine).

Johansson's performance with Grace is a superb parallel performance of the plot involving the workplace, showing how their emotional immaturity struggles to come to grips with a very real love they are experiencing, in spite of themselves. Grace, as Carter, well develops the emergence of his character into a man With character. His handling Alex's breakup of their relationship shows him now a man with the sensitivity that comes from a man strong enough to let this younger woman have time to figure out what and who she is. Their farewell in the lobby of the building where Carter, now ousted after taking a courageous stand for Sam, saving his position but losing his own in a bizarre turn, is an effectively subtle scene. There Carter leaves the 'door' open to her for a future reunion, and Alex is clearly glad that he did.

In Good Company, I think, is one of those movies that may surprise people, one that may not appear to be memorable, but may turn into a movie with its own cult following. It was extraordinary how, in its 40s-50s Golden Age of Movies-like fashion, it could show sexual love and passion without ever showing the couple actually even partially nude, much less actually having sex. Or, how it could realistically portray anger or incredulity without a constant stream of obscenities punctuating the air. Good Company, as has an increasing number of family-friendly movies has shown, that one of my biggest gripes about Hollywood is abundantly true: moral restraint can, and should, force writers, directors, producers, and actors to be better at their craft. More reliance on plot, dialogue, and subtlety, and less reliance upon shock value, what a desperately needed concept in the trade. What is also really nice about the movie is how, frankly, there were no weak performances. Quaid, nor anyone else, had to carry anyone else. Even the minor character played by David Playmer, a timid, executive terminated and later reinstated by Sam, was exquisite in his portrayal of a man who struggles with being dominated by an unseen wife who is riding the wave of professional women crashing through the corporate glass ceiling, but shows quiet grace and humility when it is he who survives the strange fortunes of corporate musical chairs, while his wife loses her job and becomes a stay-at-home housewife. Yes, I loved this movie, alright. Grace Hill Productions needs to be noticed, yes, crowned as a new star in Hollywood. Cream always rises to the top. It probably will here.

---Floyd Fernandez

Reference: www.InGoodCompanymovie.com
www.GraceHillProductions.com