Let the White One In: Affleck Can’t Satisfy the Hunger
Like many actors who doggedly pursue a parallel career as film directors, Casey Affleck manages to present interesting ideas without really sensing the best way to execute them. Such is the case for his strange new swing with third feature Company, a Russian doll narrative of nestled storytelling which takes nearly two thirds of its running time to confirm the monotonous menace is all about vampires. While its pacing is most assuredly a problem, some poorly directed performances scuttle the premise and its curious, eventually overly fussy, framing devices. Perhaps never before, even within the vast annals of Anne Rice, have vampires seemed so underwhelming in their piety or self-righteousness.
A strange young woman (Emily Alyn Lind) shows up at a stranger’s doorstep pretending to be lost, but finds herself invited into the warm bosom of a Christmas party. Some curious guests inquire after her, and she spins a yarn about visiting her grandmother nearby, who just died. On her deathbed, the grandmother told her a story about an old man (Nick Nolte) she also visited as he was dying back in 1953. The guests become interested in what the grandmother’s story was. She entertains their request, and it turns out her grandmother told the old man a similar story about a young man named Caleb (Atticus Affleck), who, fifty bears before that, circa turn of the century, was an unexpected guest for a married couple (Scoot McNairy, Adelaide Clemens) on a farm. But there’s something off about Caleb, and animals and humans in the surrounding area have been found strangely slaughtered, their hearts ripped from their chests.
It’s clear something is not quite right with all three of the strange visitors making an entrance on their unassuming hosts across three distinct periods, seemingly spanning a century. But they’re all so formidably leaden one feels more excited for the end credits rather than getting to know anything more about them. Affleck tries to throw us off the trail of morbidity by bookending his film with some Bob Dylan tunes, suggesting a folksy antidote to Bones and All (2022), but this only establishes alarm at the amount of money he had to shell out for the music rights. The tonality of the film, prior to confirming we’re dealing with the undead, suggests Wise Blood (1979) meets Little House on the Prairie (considering Affleck’s co-scribe is Ron Hansen, one might see some shades of Mona Fastvold’s far superior 2020 title The World to Come, as well).
The ruinous element of the film, unfortunately, is Atticus Affleck, whose father seemingly wasn’t able to hear how virtually none of his child’s performance rings true, including some jarring line deliveries requiring contemptuous rage instead conveyed in the essence of a petulant teenager. Supposedly, the narrative is suggesting Caleb wants to seduce his proprietor, but this has all the seriousness of the young ward trying to be sexually provocative with Gena Rowlands in Cassavetes’ Gloria (1980). Young Atticus, who could draw comparisons to Timothee Chalamet if watched on mute, is not alone in the stiff performance department, as Emily Alyn Lind, the introductory storyteller, is so cringey earnest this could be a Twilight spinoff. On a positive note, young Atticus does get to don a stellar winter coat akin to Warren Beatty’s fur in McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971).
There are some bright spots which allow Company to not be entirely miserable to sit through, including the customarily lively Ben Mendelsohn as a suspicious neighbor who gets wise to Caleb. And Adelaide Clemens (channeling white Michelle Williams) is persuasive as a kind woman of the frontier who seems genuinely sympathetic towards the lonely boy living in the barn. Scoot McNairy, comfortable in period mode, doesn’t have much to do, and the grizzled Nick Nolte looks as if he’s primed to be tortured by Paul Schrader in a taboo ethical dilemma. It’s a pity considering Affleck does approach the period horror orbit of classical authors like M.R. James or Ambrose Bierce, and a repeated use of Rumi’s poem “The Guest House” aims for an elegantly told, old fashioned message of the macabre. But Company quickly outwears its welcome, existing in a vacuum where its human characters are boring nonentities, merely grist for the mill on a conveyor belt racing to unleash both the essence of melancholy and agony, neither of which Affleck properly distinguishes.
Reviewed on September 8th at the 2026 Venice Film Festival (83rd edition) – In Competition. 92 Minutes.
★★/☆☆☆☆☆
