'Company Men' captures agony of unemployment

http://www.stltoday.com/business/columns/job-watch/article_0a5903e2-8b13-5a5f-a9da-9f3c2ee7a578.html

As the reporter assigned to the employment crisis, I've happened upon Bobby Walker's story before. More times than I can count, actually.

At the outset of the movie "The Company Men," Walker earns a six-figure annual salary in a position as a mid-level corporate executive that pretty much defies definition.

He lives in a McMansion, drives a Porsche to and from his job with a Boston shipbuilder, runs up $600 dry cleaning bills, tees off at a private club, has two cute and suitably defiant kids and a knockout wife.

Oh, and he's a dead ringer for Ben Affleck.

Walker is in way over his head and, by about the 15-minute mark of "The Company Men," he's out of a job.

Opening next month in St. Louis, "The Company Men" marks the second time in a little over a year that Hollywood has cast unemployment as a vehicle of entertainment.

The first, heaven forbid we ever forget, featured George Clooney frequenting haunts familiar to all St. Louisans.

"Up in the Air" viewed the pain of unemployment largely through the prism of a corporate downsizing specialist.

"The Company Men," conversely, examines what transpires after an employee is handed the packet detailing the severance package and outplacement services.

John Wells, the movie's director, doesn't sugarcoat it.

"People feel like they have a communicable disease," Wells said in a recent telephone interview.

He should know.

Spurred by the indignities visited upon a laid-off family member, Wells began collecting anecdotes from other displaced workers frequenting online chat rooms and job search sites.

By the time "The Company Men" went into production, Wells found himself telling the composite story of hundreds if not thousands of jobless Americans.

"Hollywood tends to make movies about big tragedies," Wells said. "This is something that millions and millions of families are dealing with. It's tragedy with a small 't.'"

"The Company Men" does not lack the villain, the feel-good sentimentality, the morality tale, the gruff character with a heart of gold (a superb performance by Kevin Costner) and other requisite Hollywood contrivances.

Nor do the thousands of blue collar shipworkers who also lost their jobs get more than a fleeting mention.

Putting all that aside, Wells got it right. Agonizingly so.

Anyone who has suffered the humiliation of outplacement will involuntarily cringe at the spectacle of grown men and women chanting in unison a mantra straight from the Oprah playbook:

"I WILL WIN! WHY? BECAUSE I HAVE FAITH. BECAUSE I HAVE COURAGE. BECAUSE I HAVE FAITH, COURAGE AND ENTHUSIASM."

Without a doubt, though, the story line attached to Phil Woodward is the toughest to watch.

Played by Kansas City native and Mizzou graduate Chris Cooper, Woodward is the guy who scraped his way to the executive suites from the factory floor only to be handed a pink slip after reaching, as they say, a certain age.

On that score he gets no sympathy from the outplacement job counselor.

She advises Woodward to eliminate from his résumé the dates that draw attention to age, dye the gray from his hair, quit smoking and avoid references to his humble beginnings.

Then, for good measure, she gives the knife one last twist.

"I'm not your enemy, Phil," the counselor tells him. "You're 60. And you look like hell."

Woodward — minus the part about working his way up from a blue collar job — is the face of the jobless.

"The people really taking it in the neck from the economy are the older workers," Wells said.

The director pointed out that there was no shortage of explanations for the loss of a job during earlier periods of extended unemployment.

Job loss meant someone had opted to buy a new car out of high school instead of going to college or placed other priorities over career advancement once they entered the work force.

"But people now have done everything right," Wells said. "They got their degrees, they were team players."

Ultimately, for thousands of Phil Woodwards and Bobby Walkers, it didn't matter.

It doesn't rise to the level of spoiler alert to note that unemployment forces Walker to replace the Porsche with a battered Chevrolet and move from the McMansion back to the bedroom of his childhood home.

His pride wounded and seething with frustration, Walker at one point in the movie tells his wife why he needs to maintain appearances.

"I can't look like just another $%**#@! with a résumé," he explains.

To which she replies, "You are just another $*$#@!&*% with a résumé."

True. But amazingly, he remained a dead ringer for Ben Affleck.