The Company Men

[uwe]

Anybody saw it and liked it? I did.



Of course it's as "realistic" as a Bruce Springsteen song, it yearns for and commemorates an America of industry production and shipyards where - Tommy Lee Jones even says it at one point - every worker could afford a house, send his  two kids to college and buy "maybe even a second car". It heralds the good parts of the American Dream, there is not just the guy selling off the company to raiders who will take it apart "the market requires us to do this, we are not a charity, we work for our shareholders now" but also the second man in the company using his wealth from the stock options to buy the shipyard (nobody wants) and put it back to old glory rather than retiring into his mansion or to Florida. Tommy Lee Jones at his world-weary best.

But the charcters and how they all come to grips (or not) with either being fired or having to fire others are well-portrayed. Recommended. Feel good movie in outcome, but spot-on in its depiction of how losing a job pulls the rug from underneath you.

Affleck is/was often ridiculed for his acting skills, but he (under)plays the suit and tie everyman well here, kind of a handsome Tom Hanks. Chris Cooper brilliantly playing the man devastated by it all.

[ack1961]

Wait, I thought Springsteen songs were all true life experiences.  Damn!

[uwe]

They are and they aren't. I'd say a good part of them are anecdotal evidence, they did happen in some shape or form or could have happened, but don't bank on it.