Weekend Movie Forecast: The Company Men Vs. Narnia

During a recession, it's easy to demonize anyone who goes to work in a suit. After the recent economic collapse there was a major backlash towards the financial system's image and the people who are a part of it. It got to the point where people began picketing outside of big wig bankers' estates in Westchester. As much as this hatred may or may not be warranted, its probably healthy that we have shows like Mad Men and the just released film The Company Men to remind us that these people have problems too. Company Men follows Company Man Bobby Walker (played by the recently legitimized Ben Affleck) who loses his job at his Company and now is just a Man (whatever that means). He soon finds himself working for his brother (1980s' Kevin Costner) constructing houses and discovers what it truly means to be the aforementioned "man." So basically it sounds like one of those fallen-rich-man-finds-true-happiness-in-manual-labor movies meant to keep the proletariat in check.Reviews have been good, with Karina Longworth from The Village Voice saying: "The surprise then was how well the gambit worked: With uniformly excellent performances (Affleckâan actor well familiar with rising fast, falling hard, and having no choice but to work his way back into the winnersâ circle one calculated decision at a timeâis particularly satisfying) and a script that parceled out sentiment judiciously and left a fair amount unsaid, The Company Men put movie-star faces on some of the least sympathetic victims of the financial crisis and still felt like a more mature reckoning with the moment than Jason Reitmanâs Oscar nominee."Not exactly dude-friendly (the pyrotechnics are all actorly, and emasculation is as pervasive as the defense-mechanism body humor in a bromance), The Company Men is maybe best understood as a chick flick about dicks: Before its too-easy conclusion, the movie offers a multifaceted glimpse at what can happen when the connective tissue between a man and his source of income is cut, and rarely suggests that it could be anything less than excruciating to stop the bleeding." — Gothamist

Robert Horan

Published Dec 10, 2010

Modified Dec 10, 2010

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Click on the film stills for more details and reviews of this week's new releases and repertory screenings, which include: The Company Men, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Tempest, The Fighter, Shoah, Rabbit a la Berlin, Hemingway's The Garden of Eden, Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Macbeth.