31st Hof International Film Festival 1997

IN THE COMPANY OF MEN

31st Hof International Film Festival 1997

Director: Neil Labute
Feature film | CDN | 1997
93 min

31st Hof International Film Festival
1997

Chad and Howard, two young white-collar execs from a nameless city, are on a six-week business trip. As they are both frustrated – passed over for promotions, rejected by their respective long-term girlfriends – they formulate a plan that will make them feel better about themselves.

Chad’s late-night suggestion is to find a young woman whom they can both date and then to dash her hopes so that ‘she’ll be reaching for the sleeping pills within a week and you and me, we’ll laugh about this until we’re very old men.’ Not long after they arrive, Chad discovers a beautiful but deaf woman in the typing pool.

What ensues is a cat-and-mouse game of one-upmanship that escalates into full-scale psychological warfare. Both Chad and Howard work to win the affection of the young woman, yet the intensity and reasons behind their deception begin to take drastically different courses…