The Company You Keep is a look
into the lives of fictional members of a late 1960’s radical political group
called the Weathermen. The group was a
spinoff of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that went from college
campus to college campus protesting the Viet Nam War. The SDS were not violent but strong emotional
views in American society at the time both for and against the war created conflict
that often led to violence between students and establishment, police and
National Guardsmen. The Weathermen were organized
to bomb some key government targets within the U.S. hoping to give society a
taste of the violence happening in Viet Nam thus encouraging an end to the
war. They tried to choose targets where
no people were present.
In the book they robbed a bank in Ann
Arbor, MI and accidently killed a guard.
Now wanted for murder, the group split, went underground and developed
new identities. Then years later in
1996, one of the members, Sharon Solarz turns herself in and the other members
become vulnerable.
Jason Sinai had successfully fabricated a
new life as Jim Grant. He was a small
town liberal lawyer in upstate New York, was married to a U.S. Senator’s
daughter and divorced due to her drug addiction problems. He was sole guardian to his six year old
daughter, Isabelle. Coincidently, Sharon
Solarz also lived in upstate New York and when Jim Grant dodges the opportunity
to be her lawyer, local newspaper reporter Ben Schulberg becomes suspicious of
Grant and discovers his true identity.
Because Sinai, now Grant is so devoted to his daughter, he feels
compelled to finally prove his innocence.
He goes underground again, drops his daughter in a New York hotel room
for his brother to find and sets off across the country to find his old pals
who could exonerate him.
He manages to reunite with old flame and
partner in crime, Mimi Lurie in a reclusive cabin in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
wilderness. Meanwhile, Ben Schulberg
heads for Ann Arbor and interviews a local FBI agent, Osborne who is still
stationed in Michigan after investigating the bank robbery years earlier. Schulberg ferrets out a personal connection
between Osborne and his family to Lurie and Sinai and tracks Sinai to the UP
cabin as the FBI closes in.
The book is written as a series of emails
written in 2006 to Isabelle from Sinai (her father), Schulberg, Lurie, and a
couple other ex-Weathermen encouraging now 17 year old Isabelle to return home
to her father. Seems back in 1996, Sinai
was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for his part in the Michigan bank
robbery decades earlier and now wants his daughter back.
After reading the book, I realized Robert
Redford had done a movie of the same name based on the book…directed, produced
and starred in it. So with low
expectations… the movie is never as good as the book… off I go. Surprisingly, the movie is better than the
book! The screenplay eliminated the
email format and replaced it with the traditional movie story telling
layout. The setting is in 2006 not 1996
(I suppose because no way Redford could play a 45 year old) but the quick pace
required by the movie genre built a suspense not as prevalent in the book. Yet the whole family loyalty vs political
ideology theme rings through loud and clear.
The Company You Keep (book and
movie) was a great flashback of what life was like in the Viet Nam era. It was
very confusing times for a teenager raised in a conservative family observing
radical hippie types boldly protesting a questionable war. Meanwhile troubled young men I knew returned
from Viet Nam and others I knew were reluctantly drafted… never knowing when or
if it would be my turn. So, I recommend
you read the book but the movie is a must see… great nostalgia for baby-boomers
and great historical fiction for the next generation. It’s still a bit of a stretch for Redford to
play a 55 year old but good entertainment nonetheless.
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