Keeping Company

Keeping Company is a captivating and intriguing movie released in 2021 that irresistibly champions the darker side of comedy and offers a refreshing slice of film noir. Directed by Josh and Josh Baker, with screenwriting by Becky Leigh and Devin Das, this darkly comic thriller delivers bold punches of humour interspersed with unexpected twists that leave the audience racking their brains and chuckling at the same time. The leading stars Jacob Grodnik, Devin Das, and Ahmed Bharoocha bring this unusual narrative to life and deliver stellar performances that leave an indelible imprint on the viewer’s mind.

At the core of Keeping Company lies a story that encapsulates whimsicality, absurdity, and unexpected moments of hilarity, all tightly knotted into a shocking tale of corporate life, family dynamics, door-to-door salesmen, financial scams, as well as kidnapping and its subsequent unintended consequences.

Jacob Grodnik essays the leading character, a door-to-door salesman named Paul. A seemingly jolly and outward-going man on the surface, his inherent goodness prevents him from succeeding in the cut-throat corporate world he is thrown into. A closer look unveils his niggling frustrations and ambition that remain hidden under his coy facade.

Devin Das plays a starkly contrasting character who is the quintessential corporate mule. Staunch, tenacious, and single-mindedly focused on financial success, Das's character helps to provide a foil for Grodnik's hopeful salesman. Ahmed Bharoocha, on the other hand, showcases another perspective of life within this chaotic corporate world where everyone’s objectives, motives, and intentions become blurred.

Keeping Company presents a disquieting yet ironic view of society’s obsession with success. The movie is consistently engaging, with its subversive humor and twisted plotlines ensuring the audiences remain captivated. What begins as situations depicting common interpersonal relationships and career struggles give way to a riveting tale of dark secrets, deception, misplaced trust, mistaken identity, and ultimately a bizarre twist to the notion of corporate success.

Though the movie maintains a light, humor-tinged narrative, the tension is palpable as darker aspects of the story start to unfold. The characters are beautifully etched out, each having their own distinct backstory, which further adds depth to the plot. From phylogenetic complexities to personal vendetta, the diversity of motives portrayed in the film makes it highly engaging and significantly realistic.

A standout feature of Keeping Company is the filmmakers' ability to incorporate flashbacks adeptly, which removes linear predictability and adds an air of mystery to the plot. Moreover, their deft use of the camera, sound, and lighting serves to enhance the film's purposeful aesthetic quality, making it a visually enticing watch.

Highlighting themes of ambition, frustration, manipulation, aspiration, and conspicuously the human capacity for deceit and manipulation, Keeping Company celebrates dark humor in a manner that is both bold and refreshing. This is not a film that hides its eccentricities; instead, it wears them with pride and flair. It delves deep into the central characters' psyche, peeling back their clean-cut exteriors to reveal the turmoil brewing beneath.

Lending support to the lead actors is a strong ensemble cast that includes the likes of Joe Nunez, Bellamy Young, and Andie MacDowell. They portray memorable supporting characters, each adding a unique dimension to the film’s panoramic narrative tapestry. The characters' interpersonal dynamics are richly layered and reflected beautifully through skillful writing and impressive performances.

Overall, Keeping Company is a film that manages to mix farcical humor with a darker undertone, making it an outstanding entry in the genre of black comedy-thrillers. It's audacious, it's bold, it's wacky, and it's one wild ride that is certainly worth taking. An engaging narrative, combined with commendable performances by the ensemble cast, ensures that this film remains etched in the viewer's memory for a long time.

By blurring the lines between good and evil, right and wrong, Keeping Company asks exploratory questions about morality, deception, and the often ignored dark corners of ambition. It’s a film that takes viewers on a riveting journey to unveil the conflict that exists within ourselves and the world around us. All in all, Keeping Company represents a leap into the uncanny aspects of the human psyche, transforming mundane corporate lives into an unforgiving rollercoaster of raw emotions, fatal ambition, and unexpected hilarity.