In Good Company [DVD]

From Amazon.co.uk Nowadays it's rare to find a movie that pays attention to human weakness as well as strength, and that sees a whole person as having both. When a sports magazine gets bought by a media conglomerate, an ad sales executive named Dave Foreman (Dennis Quaid) finds himself playing second-in-command to Carter Duryea, a hotshot barely half his age (Topher Grace) whose marriage has just fallen apart. One evening Carter invites himself over to Dave's house to escape his loneliness, where he meets Dave's daughter Alex (Scarlett Johansson). The two strike immediate sparks and when they run into each other later in the city, a relationship begins--which they discreetly keep from Dave. But the heart of the movie is not in its plot, but in the way that Dave responds to the news that his wife is pregnant, or how Carter tries to fortify his self-image with a new car. These aren't jokes; the actors inhabit these moments fully and turn them into psychological events. Quaid plays Dave as a simple man, but his straightforwardness feels genuine (rather than a failure of the writer's imagination). Grace and Johansson have terrific chemistry as lovers, but so do Grace and Quaid, both as rivals and as a substitute father and son. In Good Company isn't likely to win any awards, but it's honest and honorable; there's a core of truth to its characters and their problems aren't resolved too neatly. Sometimes, that's worth watching. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com Product Description Poignant comedy drama starring Dennis Quaid as a slightly weary advertising boss and dedicated family man. Dan Foreman (Quaid) has spent 20 years as the head of advertising sales for Sports America, a leading athletics magazine. He is happily married with a daughter who he dotes on. But Dan's life is changed when he is demoted and his old position is handed over to a younger man, Carter Duryea (Topher Grace).