In Good Company (2004)

Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) has been responsible for selling ad space in America's premier sports publication, Sports America, for 23 years. He has run his department based on handshakes and gentlemanly conduct, and has accunulated a team of staff who adore him. However, his life is in for a shakeup as college prodigy Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) is thrust into Foreman's job, demoting him to merely being an "awesome wingman". On Duryea's first day, he meets Foreman's daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson) in an awkward encounter in a lift, and falls hard for her after his wife of 7 months leaves him. A chaotic life now lays ahead for all concerned.

"An enchanting little rom-com with a paternal storyline added" is probably how this film would have been pitched in magazines, but it far more than that. At times extremely uplifting, but also melancholic and sombre on other occasions. Some sections of the film are a little formulaic, true, but overall the film presents a concept which is a little more complex than simply a love affair between two young pretty things. This is a tale of isolation and desperation coupled with that of parental disgruntlement and concern.

The very opening of the film gives us an insight into Quaid's Foreman. He wakes at 4:30 to a cold, empty house and is greeted only by the early morning news, a cup of coffee and an empty box of pregnancy tests (which he later discovers to be his wife's). He spends a few moments pondering over the volatile possibilites of this before swiftly dumping it back in the trash and emptying his coffee filter over it, trying to remove any thoughts before leaving. He leaves this eerie environment and jets off to work.
But Foreman is not as linear as this description makes him seem. He is a troubled man with concerns at work, a lack of time available to dedicate to his family and financial strains. Quaid certainly shows these grizzled features to Foreman's personality well, but he also demonstrates the subletites of the character and makes them mor visible than they would normally be; one example being his transferral of family values to the workplace - each person is important and he shares an almost fraternal bond with his team. The arrival of Duryea is what breaks this familial atmostphere.

Topher Grace's Carter Duryea brings to the table more modern sensibilities coupled with youthful exuberance and dreams of a "synergised" cross-advertising corporation. However, he is not merely an empty formulaic shell. He, much like Foreman, has troubles at home, but alsdo carries with him a kind of personal burden. He is lonely, unloved and feels isolated, an intruder into a well-dug in fortress. His inadvertant fall for Alex leads to a lift in his demeanour, but then to a freefall as the relationship deteriorates. The highlight of the performance is when he goes into Alex's dorm room, and he is so nervous that she literally has to re-seduce him simply to get him to declothe. He shows his sadness aswell as his anxiety, and when Alex's back is turned, a few tears are shed as he really acknowkledges the close of his marriage and the start of his new affair.

Despite the obvious quality of both Quaid and Grace, it was the combination of the two which really proved the highlight of the film. Duryea's initial desperation for any kind of familial acceptance was endearing and saddening simultaneously, but when he does appear as a member of the family, it is as if he always has been one. He quickly shifts from being a desperate hanger-on to a real Foreman, and by the end of the dinner it seems that only Dan is uncomfortable with his presence.

The only character that left me a little cold was Johansson's Alex, who, despite being pant-wettingly beautiful, was fairly unemotional and wooden - which is much unlike her as an actress. However, when teamed with Grace or Quaid she came out of her shell a lot more and the chemistry was far more convinvcing than when left on her lonesome.

A thoroughly enjoyable rom-com with moments of hilarity, concern, ineptitude, pity and frustration, In Good Company is a brilliant insight into familial, corporate and amorous life, with dynamic performances and a script with surprising depth. I think that many will assume it as rom-com trash and scream at me for giving such a positive review, but it is definitely worth watching for thse of a rom-com persuasion or otherwise - one of the best films of last year and a really excellent watch.
9/10.