Short on charm
If “In Good Company” tells us anything, it’s that “charm” isn’t in the Team “American Pie” playbook.
In “Company,” the Weitz brothers – writer-director Paul, producer Chris – take an engaging cast, a simple and offbeat tale about a younger boss dating a demoted manager’s daughter – set against corporate ageism – and smother the charm right out of it.
Dennis Quaid is the old guy being pushed aside for Topher Grace’s new corporate star, and “It” girl Scarlett Johansson is the daughter/ girlfriend who comes between them. But Paul Weitz, plainly not getting enough help from brother Chris, can’t wring a compelling story out of them, or find the light touch this thing requires.
Quaid stars as Dan Foreman, a veteran ad-salesman for a sports magazine that’s just been bought out by an acquisitive Brit billionaire (Malcolm MacDowell). As anybody in the corporate world can tell you, buyouts mean “finding new efficiencies” or “downsizing” – mass firings.
Dan’s way of doing things – he just started a long, extended courtship of spark-plug magnate Philip Baker Hall to get his business – is out the door. And when the new owner brings in his “own man,” so is Dan’s job. He’s lower on the ladder. Longtime colleagues are soon getting the ax. They’re all learning the buzz phrase “latest round of layoffs.”
New guy Carter (Grace) has a devotion to the larger company and its leader that is cultish. But he’s out of his depth at the magazine and determined not to let it show. He throws all sorts of ideas against the wall, hoping to turn around ad sales.
It’s a sign of the intellectual dimness of the script that writer-director Weitz lets Carter believe that “synergy” is the answer. Dredging up an early ‘90s business fad shows how out-of-touch the guy – and the guy who wrote him – must be.
Carter’s monomania about work has just chased off his dishy trophy wife (Selma Blair). But things look up when he crosses paths with the very cute and smart Alex, played by the winsome woman of mystery Johansson (“Lost in Translation”). He is all into this NYU student before he realizes that she’s the daughter of his underling. And when Dad finds out, let the fireworks begin.
Actually, they don’t, which is part of the disappointment. The movie fights to be unpredictable. We spend a good part of the picture in Dan’s world, where he frets over what his daughter might be doing in her spare time, how he’s going to pay the family’s bills and what life will be like when you’re 51 and demoted back into working 65 hour weeks. There’s a nice rapport between Quaid and Johansson, and both are pitch perfect at embodying the worries of their characters.
Then, we wander off into Carter-land. And Grace simply can’t ratchet up his acting or his charisma enough for us to care about his life, his work or his embarrassment.
Bottom line: “In Good Company” – isn’t.