In Good Company

Dan Foreman (Dennis Quaid) is 51 and his life is good... all in all. The veteran head of ad sales for the weekly Sports America has just celebrated the magazine's best year ever, thanks in large part to Dan's warm, honest, and friendly way of doing business and the team spirit of the department he heads. Even news of his wife’s unexpected pregnancy and his oldest daughter, Alex’s (Scarlett Johansson), acceptance into the exclusive (not to mention expensive) New York University makes Dan happy, although it leaves him slightly worried about the family finances, but, as he has always done, he will manage.

Carter Duryea (Topher Grace) is 26 and thinks his life is terrific, for the most part. The young prodigy has been steadily moving up at the multinational Globecom. The executives even know him by name—Carter is being groomed for his next step on the corporate ladder: heading up ad sales at one of the top publications recently acquired by Globecom in its latest deal, Sports America magazine. Unfortunately for Carter, his promotion coincides with the end of his seven-month marriage and he has no one, except a fish, to share his happiness with. But he knows he is on the right track and he will manage.

Dan’s exasperation at being demoted is nothing compared to his disbelief at being replaced by Carter. Given his new boss’s age and his relative experience in ad sales (none), Dan has little desire to be Carter's "mentor." But in light of new developments at home, he needs his job as much as Carter needs his. Forging a fragile relationship out of corporate necessity, the two begin working together to meet Globecom's mandate to cut the department’s budget while increasing profits by 35 percent.
Carter’s zeal to deliver for the top executives doesn't win him many friends at the Sports America offices. His back-to-basics method of working, lacking the human side of the business, often clashes with Dan and his devotion to his team. The way Dan sees it, these people are a family—something Carter is completely lacking. The new department head’s loneliness even leads him to call a staff meeting on a Sunday and then self-invite himself to dinner at Dan’s home with his family, where Carter meets Alex.

Later, when the lonely sales head bumps into the equally lonely student at a Manhattan coffee shop, the chance encounter reignites the sparks that initially flew at the family dinner... sparks that lead to a relationship, which the couple keeps hidden from Dan. The corporate handbook has little to say about sleeping with your employee’s college-aged daughter and if it were to come out, news of their relationship would seriously threaten Carter’s relationship with Dan, Alex’s close relationship with her father, and the progress both salesmen have made at Sports America.