Review

Review Date: 13-February-11
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Juicy

The Company Men (2010)

This week's Jujube Spotlight features one of the many movies designed to bolster audiences during the Great Depression. Movies of this kind exist in our own economically depressing time, such as John Wells' The Company Men. This film, which follows three shipping industry executives who get RIFed, is in fact an indictment of corporate greed more than a narrative, and it aims to expose the problem more than boost morale. Yet with strong actors and a valid point, it forms a decent movie experience.

Some viewers might be tempted to scoff at the suffering depicted in The Company Men since it takes place at the top of the food chain. I can imagine choruses of "Boo hoo, the poor guy lost his corner office and had to sell his Porsche." But recession can suck all over and, as the title suggests, the movie deals with the particular pain felt by golf-loving suits when their company, citing stockholder imperatives, lets them go. Ben Affleck plays the youngest of the three, a family man on whom the movie's slim plot hinges. (The driving question is whether he will find new purpose and overcome feelings of failure.) Tommy Lee Jones and Chris Cooper play the elder executives who have given their entire careers to the company and regard being fired as a betrayal. This is especially accurate in Jones' case, since the company's president (Craig T. Nelson) was his best friend and the HR executive who handed him a pink slip was his mistress (Maria Bello).

Most of the film is devoted to Affleck's search for work and attempts to maintain his standard of living, which do not sit well with his devoted but practical wife (Rosemarie DeWitt). Perhaps to pacify scoffing viewers or perhaps to present a full catalog of the trials of the unemployed, Affleck undergoes a humbling experience when he agrees to work for his blue collar brother-in-law (Kevin Costner) after much reluctance. This means swapping his Italian wingtips for steel-toed boots and getting his hands dirty. Meanwhile, Cooper contends with agism (no one wants to hire a greyhair) while Jones ponders the morality of his erstwhile friend pocketing 20 million dollars while laying off employees and destroying their lives. Collectively, these men represent the witnesses and victims of capitalist corruption, and the determination and support systems needed to survive it.

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