January is generally a dumping ground for movies that have failed to grip the interest of test-audiences and/or studios. The Company Men, which tells the tale of three men’s struggle after losing their high-paying jobs, is deservedly one of these forgettable films. This is the directorial debut of John Wells, who is best known as the producer of such acclaimed television series as Southland, ER, and The West Wing. While these may be marvels of the small screen, his TV savvy falls short on the silver screen. With halting camerawork that rarely makes use of film’s wider aspect ratio, dialogue that’s often aggressively on the nose, and characters that steadily fail to prove compelling, The Company Men is thoroughly mediocre.
This dull downsizing drama splinters its narrative between three wealthy white-collar businessmen: one a cocky young man who constantly talks about his golf score and business degree (played half-heartedly by Ben Affleck), the second an ass-kissing over-the-hill groaner (a role Chris Cooper tries desperately to breathe life into), and the last a old-school self-made man of integrity (played by Tommy Lee Jones with as much dignity as he can muster.) Couple this split focus with the decadent and shallow trappings of wealth that surround these men as they struggle with their unexpected unemployment, and you’ve managed three protagonists it’s very difficult to care about or identify with. Even with the turn in the economy, it is possible to empathize with the affluent unemployed, as the popularity of Up in the Air and the rise of Team Coco have proved. Yet Wells, who wrote and directed this limp narrative, fails repeatedly to craft characters with whom the audience can relate. This is evident in a scene where melancholy music swells as Affleck’s bruised bore glumly looks on as his Porsche is repossessed. Seriously?
Their luxurious lifestyles are repeatedly flaunted, making the stakes of their unemployment so low that these usually compelling leading men are tripping over them. While Lee broods over the mass firings, his wife nonchalantly buys an end table with the lofty price tag of $16,750. Affleck’s Neanderthal shouts how he’d rather die than see his wife go back to work, then later screams at his now working wife when she cancels his golf club membership. And our heart is meant to break for Cooper when he lies to his daughter about being able to afford her class trip to Italy. While these garish affectations could be overcome by intriguing portraits of complicated figures, the characters are never fleshed out beyond moaning sketches of entitled men. Before long, the film itself seems to lose interest in them and skips potentially intriguing scenes about divorce, death, and reunion, in favor of jumping to an ending as thematically confusing as it is uninspired.
Ultimately, The Company Men is a tale of Haves who now Have Less that is incredibly inarticulate in its execution. The script is flat. The score sounds like stock music, and this first-time director wastes the talents of a number of usually impressive performers, including Maria Bello and Rosemarie DeWitt, who are relegated to beautiful ball-buster and long-suffering wife respectively. I honestly struggle to think of a single thing I liked about this movie. Maybe just that it ended.
