Reality bites: The Company Men

Movie focuses on the lives of three men who are fired because a low shared price dictated that many lose their jobs.

Think of The Company Men as an accompaniment to Up in the Air. Where Up in the Air dealt with the economic collapse in the US from the point of view of a man rapidly losing his soul as he was forced to tell people they were out of a job and out of luck, The Company Men shows the effects of downsizing on those actually downsized.

The abiding impression The Company Men leaves is one of realism. Tommy Lee Jones, Ben Affleck and Chris Cooper star as employees at a Boston-based corporation who are secure in their jobs, who indeed see their personalities as mere extensions of their occupations. These are men whose entire identity is bound to the grinding machine that provides them with a healthy cheque at the start of every month.

After a lengthy prologue that establishes that these mid- to upper-level employees enjoy their fast cars, McMansions and regimented lives, the rest of The Company Men focuses on how their lives are shattered after they are fired, not for inefficiency, but simply because a low share price dictated that many lose their jobs.

For the most part, The Company Men is tender in its treatment of the newly unemployed without losing sight of the harshness of their changed existence. The one bum note is struck in the character of James Salinger, played by Craig T Nelson. Salinger is not the owner of the company, he founded it with his closest friend Jones many decades ago. Yet he fires Jones without a hint of sentimentality or regret. In a movie that tries to avoid cut-and-dried characterisations, Salinger is too cartoonish in his villainy.

Of the three fired men the film follows, by far the most pitiable is Ben Affleck. Forced to give up his fast car and country club membership, he meanders between attending outplacement seminars where silly slogans take precedence over finding jobs and working for a near-bankrupt construction company run by his brother-in-law Kevin Costner. A contrast is drawn between Costner, who hires his relative-by-marriage even though he can’t afford to do and never liked him back when he was a high-flying executive, and Nelson, who was happy to break life-long bonds for a slightly larger yearly bonus.

The Company Men is directed by John Wells, previously known only for being one among dozens of producers on medical procedural “ER”. He tries to add a touch of cloying sentimentality to what should be a brutal drama by insinuating that he really misses an earlier era when men were men and built things with their hands. But by directing the actors, particularly Costner, in such a way that their sadness is masked by gruff exteriors, Wells prevents his debut feature film from being too saccharine.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, April  3^rd, 2011.