Company

In 1975, a mysterious woman (former child actor Emily Alyn Lind), searching for a family that seems to have relocated without her knowledge, finds herself at a Christmas party among strangers. She asks to tell the guests a story about a moribund hermit (Nick Nolte), who in 1953 welcomed a freezing young woman (Caylee Cowan) into his lonely cabin in the woods. To repay him for saving her, she too starts spinning a tale about an unconscious outsider (Atticus Affleck) rescued from the snow.

Company weaves a confusing web of narratives to disguise how little plot it actually has to offer. Even as the actors shift within each layer, the recurring parallels of the same house in the bleak winter landscape don’t go unnoticed by the viewer. In its final act, the film reveals the reason, but despite a nice meta element involving Affleck’s other son, Indiana, the payoff is hardly worth the elaborate and protracted setup.

Casey Affleck, who attended Luca Guadagnino’s masterclass in Venice before premiering his third directorial effort, seems to have taken a page from the Italian auteur’s book in it. He frames his son Atticus like Timothée Chalamet, giving him the same contemplative gaze as he stares into the fireplace. Not only is there a physical resemblance – the dark curls, facial bone structure and Greek-sculpture nose – but the guarded murmurs and affected adolescent indifference are strikingly reminiscent of the latter’s performance in Call Me by Your Name. In spite of the resemblance, Chalamet’s talent is not so easily replicated, and Affleck’s youngest has difficulty conveying emotional complexity.

The most interesting thing about the piece turns out to be a passing remark, likely unintended for further contemplation: Nolte’s character tells the lady he is hosting that he is terrible at making conversation and doesn’t know how to fill the silence. Considering this, the Matryoshka setup of stories reveals a larger truth about human interaction and emotional buffers: it is often easier to gossip and talk about other people than to directly speak about oneself.

Affleck co-wrote Company with Ron Hansen, the novelist who penned The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, in whose film adaptation Affleck starred. The two seemed eager to re-create the old-photography aesthetic of Andrew Dominik’s contemplative post-Western. Despite a handful of intriguing individual visuals, the film is only moderately successful in sustaining its ambitions.

In a festival that boasted four and seven-hour documentaries, Company’s 92 minutes somehow dragged on the longest. Aggressively devoid of momentum or passion, Affleck presents an inert, somnambulist crawl, in which little happens and even less resonates.

Selina Sondermann

Read more reviews from our Venice Film Festival 2026 coverage here.

For further information about the event, visit the Venice Film Festival website here.