The Company Men, longtime ER producer John Wells’s directorial debut, follows a year in the life of Ben Affleck, Tommy Lee Jones, and Chris Cooper, three men dealing with the fallout of a corporate downsizing. But we only know this from seeing the movie at Sundance (where we really liked it), because, to judge from the unsubtle trailer, this is mostly a movie about Ben Affleck. Affleck plays a businessman who gets laid off and undergoes a sort of reverse–Good Will Hunting, getting a stronger and stronger Boston accent and a construction gig as his job difficulties pile up, much to the consternation of his wife and children (and Kevin Costner!). The trailer slams on the “This is a socially relevant tearjerker†button as hard as it possibly can, with scenes of Affleck crying “I’m a 37-year-old loser!†and his wife (Rachel Getting Married and Mad Men’s Rosemarie DeWitt) replying “But you have me!†And then there’s the magnificently over-the-top tagline, “In America we give our lives to our jobs. This fall it’s time to take them back.†By going to the movies?
