|
''The Company Men'' is an American drama movie, written and directed by John Wells. It features Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones. It premiered at the 26th Sundance Film Festival on January 22, 2010 and had a one-week run in December 10, 2010 to be eligible for the year's Academy Awards. The movie was released commercially in the United States and Canada on January 21, 2011. ==Plot== When the multi-billion dollar publicly held shipbuilding corporation Global Transportation Systems, or GTX, is downsized in the midst of the recession, many employees are fired, including Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck). Walker is a white-collar, corporate ladder-climbing employee with a six-figure salary, a wife, and a teenage son and younger daughter. Walker gets outplacement services from GTX but, without success, gradually loses luxuries such as his country club membership and his Porsche. He finally resorts to selling his expensive house (with a large mortgage) and moves his family in with his parents. Ultimately, Walker is forced to take a manual labor job working for his blue-collar brother-in-law, Jack Dolan (Kevin Costner), installing drywall. Meanwhile, by downsizing labor, GTX CEO James Salinger (Craig T. Nelson) suffers no misfortune during the crisis. His longtime friend, college roommate, and first employee, Gene McClary (Tommy Lee Jones), challenges his strategy of employee cutbacks and questions the ethics of spending money to build new corporate headquarters while laying off employees. Angry with McClary's questioning, Salinger asserts that the deep cuts are necessary to increase profits, to keep the company in business, and to satisfy stockholders. Later, it is determined that an additional round of lay-offs is necessary. Senior manager Phil Woodward (Chris Cooper), who, over the course of 30 years, had risen from the factory floor to the corporate offices (a decidedly rare accomplishment), is also fired. When McClary demands that senior HR manager Sally Wilcox (Maria Bello), who is also his mistress, rehire Woodward immediately, she tells him that he, too, is being fired. Woodward's life quickly falls apart as his former colleagues abandon him and employer after employer tells him he is either too old to start a new career, or too old to do jobs that those half his age find difficult. At his wife's request, Woodward goes out every morning as usual with his briefcase to keep his situation secret from the neighbors, but he cannot do anything to abate his mounting bills or his daughter's impending college tuition bill. Frustrated and depressed, he commits suicide in his garage by carbon-monoxide poisoning. Despite McClary's anger, he has become even wealthier as a shareholder of the firm (the value of his GTX stock options increase due to the company's downsizing), but he feels guilty about his company ruining so many lives and, instead, would rather put people to work. Feeling the need for a change, he leaves his wife and starts his own business. Walker is the first person he hires. Walker arrives at the bare offices to help start a new business composed of many former GTX employees. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Company Men」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|