Still in search of another Johansson fix, I rented the movie In Good Company, which no campaign ever inspired me to see, even though it has a great cast. What a mistake. I am a foolish man sometimes.
This light comedy-drama looks at the impacts of corporate take-overs can have on those who work for those companies. It all begins when Dan Foreman's (Dennis Quaid) employer gets taken over by a profit-hungry multi-media conglomerate. Dan gets demoted out of his sales director's job and replaced by a no-experience ladder-climbing 26-year-old snot named Carter Duryea played by Topher Grace (of That 70s Show).
Things don't go well for both characters, for which you will sympathise because they are both the good guys of this story, thrown together by circumstance. Carter, new to the newly acquired company will do anything to make friends with his employees, more so because his new bride left him because he's too career-oriented and not enough of a man. So eventually he invites himself over to Dan's home for supper after an impromptu Sunday afternoon meeting with the team.
The supper is of course a major disaster. Dan has a pregnant wife and 2 daughters, one of whom wants to transfer to NYU to pursue her studies as a writer. She is also could have been a professional tennis player, but the tom-boy label she is burdened with haunts her. Alex, is played by the yummy Scarlett Johansson... wish there were more tomboys like her around. When Alex and Carter meet, the sparks fly on both sides but the situation calls for discretion, with Dad never far away and he's already not liking Carter because he took his job, obviously.
The love story blossoms under the cover of the dorm room bed and Dan's life keeps getting complicated since his new employer has to cut some folks off to of course maximise profits. This whole do-more-with-less ideology has always irritated me to no end, but I will not go on a rampaging diatribe on the subject. So Dan has to fire the employees he himself had hired and became friends with. While Carter, too young to truly understand how buttering up your clients works, tries and tries to make it work but can't, all the while keeping the relationship with Dan's daughter a secret.
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
I just saw this movie recently myself, and I loved it. I agree whole-heartedly with your 4 outta 5 rating, and for essentially the same reasons.
Great movie, great review.