Bottom line, good. Not great, or "best picture of the year" but a good film with some excellent acting by all involved, especially Topher Grace. My one criticism might be the overbearing music and musical video interludes"Here is the music to show that he is sad"
"Here is the music to show that he is Lost". Didn't work. Don't get me wrong, Barry Levinson in "Homicide Life on the Street", I thought always did a good job at using music to convey emotion when words do not suffice. But Paul Weitz is no Barry Levinson. Perhaps a few more jobs under his belt and it wont be so awkward. But then again, it could have been some studio stooge sent to "retail it up" and not really his fault.
Quaid I thought did a good job at conveying his character's awkwardness with having a boss half his age and none of his experience (There are some great lines scattered throughout that I wont spoil here). Add in that he is at that age where he is too young to retire and too old to start again you get a setting that is all too familiarly frightening to many of us. In a business world where buzz words, gimmicks and youth obsession are too often substituted for experience and wisdom, Weitz successfully created an appropriate emblematic figure in Carter Duryea. Almost "Soviet" in his unquestioned beliefs, he goes through a mostly believable transformation that ends appropriately, and not as Hollywood sap.
For Hollywood, this is a very good film. For the world of film in general, just good.
Quaid I thought did a good job at conveying his character's awkwardness with having a boss half his age and none of his experience (There are some great lines scattered throughout that I wont spoil here). Add in that he is at that age where he is too young to retire and too old to start again you get a setting that is all too familiarly frightening to many of us. In a business world where buzz words, gimmicks and youth obsession are too often substituted for experience and wisdom, Weitz successfully created an appropriate emblematic figure in Carter Duryea. Almost "Soviet" in his unquestioned beliefs, he goes through a mostly believable transformation that ends appropriately, and not as Hollywood sap.
For Hollywood, this is a very good film. For the world of film in general, just good.