Quaid and Grace Make Good Company

Dan Foreman’s (Dennis Quaid) 51-year-old life has drifted towards the surreal. First he awakes to the staggering news his wife Ann (Marg Helgenberger) is pregnant. Next he finds out 19-year-old daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson) wants to leave home and transfer to NYU. Certain things can’t get stranger, he walks into work only to discover the Sports Illustrated-like magazine he works for, and for whom he is the VP of their advertising department, has been sold to a multinational conglomerate and he’s being demoted.

No matter, Dan’s got bills to pay, mouths to feed and a family he loves, so whatever surprises his new bosses decide to throw at him he’s sure he can find away to make it work. But when said first surprise is the arrival of new 24-year-old VP Carter Duryea (Topher Grace), Dan’s not as certain as he once was he’s going to be able to see this change through. His old ways of doing business; a handshake here, a toothy grin there; are being thrown out, Carter spouting words like “synergy” as if they were the new Holy Grail of corporate America.

Not that Carter doesn’t have his own problems. He’s a bit emotionally adrift, especially with his newlywed wife Kimberly (a nicely understated Selma Blair) leaving him on the day of his big promotion. Carter’s drifting, excited about his new job but clueless as to how to get everyone in the office to respect him. Worst, he’s friendless, no one to talk to about things as mundane as the weather or as heavy as life’s curveballs. Almost immediately, Carter latches onto Dan, not so much for guidance, but for basic companionship.

Dan’s aghast. Not only does his new, much younger boss think he can run the department better than he ever did, now he wants to be friends, latching on to he and his family like a somber, sadsack puppy, inviting himself over to dinner absent of any ideas as to the awkwardness that creates. Alex sees through Carter’s desperation and loneliness from the start, but also notices something more and decides that, even if he’s stolen her father’s job, the poor guy still could use a friend. That friendship quickly blossoms into something more, however, and the duo can’t even begin to imagine what will happen if Dan were to find out.

About a Boy proves to not be a fluke for writer/director Paul Weitz, and with American Pie the only other thing on his resume that achievement was a distinct possibility. Happily, I can report that Weitz is indeed a strong, talented filmmaker adept at finding nuance and grace as he dives headfirst into the male psyche. This is more than proven with the radiantly heartfelt and surprisingly intelligent In Good Company, a wry and comedic journey into both aging and modern corporate dynamics that rates as one of 2004’s best discoveries. Even better, Weitz asks tough questions without easy answers, pointing daggers at companies like the very one he’s busy making motion pictures for.

Of course, it’s not all good news. Some of this is pretty cheeky stuff, and Weitz relies a bit much on both coincidence and chance to bring things to a rather standard feel-good conclusion. With the way things are going for Dan and Carter, and with the former having a full-out meltdown in front of the Rupert Murdoch-like corporate honcho Teddy K (a perfectly oily uncredited Malcolm McDowell), I expected In Good Company to have the guts to finish with the same pinpricked precision it began. It doesn’t, Weitz choosing to go out on a Hollywood coda dripping in cliché, and even if I was happy to see Dan make out just fine it still didn’t sit with the uneasy melancholy of the rest of the picture.

Still, that doesn’t prove either to be fatal or quell my love for the movie. Quaid continues his resurgence with a performance of exquisite beauty and subtlety. He comes across like a modern day Gary Cooper, fighting the tide yet desperately trying to figure out how to change his own deep-set ways as to keep his family together. There is a moment early on where Dan finds a discarded pregnancy test in the trash and the actor pulls the scene off with such panache and amusedly befuddled internal rage I couldn’t help but be enamored right than and there.

Grace nearly matches him. The best thing abut Fox’s otherwise dreadful That 70’s Show, it is easy to see why the young actor was named, along with Phantom of the Opera ingénue Emmy Rossum, the National Board of Review’s Breakthrough Actor for 2004. What with turns here and in P.S,. and even Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!, Grace more than shows himself capable of delving into the hardest of drama and the silliest of comedy with relative ease. Jived up on coffee, scared of being rejected, Carter faces down his employees in the board room for the first time with a mixture of utter terror and cocksure poise and the actor nails it, selling the moment as well as the VP’s growing confidence to perfection.

The women don’t come out half as well. Johansson does what she can, but she’s really relegated to nothing more than background here. Sure, there’s a nice after-tennis scene with Quaid, and a moment in parked car with Grace has the winsomeness first love trepidations is beautiful, but other than that there isn’t much for the actress to do. She’s a catalyst, a reason for Dan and Carter to butt heads and ultimately come together, and as such she’s almost forgotten. This is better than can be said for Helgenberger, for if Johansson is forgotten than the older actress might as well not be in the movie at all. After regaining career momentum and respect in television’s CSI, Weitz does her a disservice and gives her a woman’s role so routine and rote it could have been lifted straight out of a 1930’s melodrama.

Luckily, neither of these proves to be quite the error they could have been, Weitz and company managing to keep In Good Company well within my good graces. There is a bounty to be found in both the script’s intelligence and in the two stars' soaring performances, things often missing in so many Hollywood comedy-dramas I’d almost forgotten what it was like to get them. As after Christmas cinematic gifts go, this is one worth treasuring.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)