The Company Men - B+

In theaters. Rated R, 113 minutes. Trailer.

Writer/Director John Wells brings us a straightforward story of corporate downsizing, focusing on 3 employees at 3 different levels. The film hit the demographic and lifestyle bullseye for me as it focused on a white-collar upper middle class father's burdens of providing for his family while his wife stays home and takes care of the kids. Ben Affleck is Bobby Walker, a 37 year old up and comer at GTX, a global transportation company struggling with a sliding stock price during the economic tsunami of 2008. In order to get a jump in the stock, they fire thousands, including Walker and upper manager Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper). Click below for more on Company Men:

Tommy Lee Jones is in the executive suite and is shown as the executive with a conscience. As Walker and Woodward work through the implications and psychological issues of losing their jobs, the director touches on male ego, responsibility, work ethic and self-worth. Jones shows the self-loathing and excess that can become necessity as things and lifestyle perks are acquired.

I haven't seen any other film that delves into the impact of a lost job on this segment of the population and its specific impact on the breadwinner. Cooper is the most tragic because of his age and obligations (tuition, mortgage, lifestyle), and Affleck shows the reaction with denial. Rosemary Dewitt provides a great, naturalistic performance as Affleck's practical and loving wife - this and her performance in Rachel Getting Married have solidified her as a great actress in my book.

The film could've been a classic but is a little to over simplified to achieve greatness. The scenes with Affleck's blue collar homebuilder brother-in-law Jack (Kevin Costner) have a great message and quality to them, but they verge into cliche too often. The Maria Bello storyline was useless and should've been cut in favor of more of Cooper.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins provides several interesting frames, most notably several silhouette shots and effective stratification shots of the levels of wealth of the 3 families.

One hole in the film is that Affleck's character is supposedly making $120,000 and they live in a $850,000 house and go skiing and vacationing all the time and he has a porsche - to do all that he'd need a salary of more like $250,000 minimum.

This was really, really good and an absolute must for any male breadwinner.

Roger Deakins