““Company’’ is a brutal black comedy. It asks real questions and takes real chances, which is no doubt why it spooked Hollywood. Chad and his neurotic colleague Howard (Matt Malloy) fly into an unnamed city to work on an unnamed project for their unnamed company. Both have recently been dumped, so Chad persuades Howard to play a game: they’ll both woo a lonely deaf typist (Stacy Edwards), watch her blossom under the attention and then drop her cold. ““You know, to restore a little dignity to our lives,’’ says Chad.
Howard is predictable: you figure he won’t have the stomach for this scam, and he doesn’t. But Chad is a startling creation. His frat-boy charm degenerates into misanthropy - and still there are times when you wonder if he’s actually falling in love. ““Company,’’ clearly influenced by David Mamet, absolutely nails the tussle of male egos and the lewd poetry of thirtysomething banter. LaBute’s script relies solely on the power of words - but then words are all you can afford when you’re shooting a $25,000 movie near home in Fort Wayne, Ind.
LaBute, a playwright and former drama teacher, wrote ““Company’’ as a study of banal, everyday evil. At Sundance, some audience members figured the movie was autobiographical and the director himself was a misogynist. ““You want to say, “Can we stop being silly and go get something to eat?’ The movie is fiction. Do these people run screaming out of “Richard III’?''
LaBute left the festival without a U.S. distributor. Harvey Weinstein of Miramax was quoted online saying he didn’t think women would be wild about the movie. ““I was really depressed when that came out,’’ says LaBute. ““I thought, “If you don’t like it, that’s cool, but don’t crush us under your boot heel’.’’ Six weeks after Sundance, Sony Classics finally signed on. As it happens, women, in screenings and in reviews, have mostly embraced LaBute’s movie as an expose of sexism and a brave bit of truth-telling. It’s men who should be worried.
