Keeping Company starts with a very strong foundation and then just continues to turn the screws, bringing seemingly disparate stories together with a stylish flourish. It’s amazing to me to see how smart and assured this debut feature film actually is, mixing a variety of genres and homages to some of the finest films and directors. It’s a phenomenal debut and probably my favorite of Panic Fest 2021.

It opens on a seedy street corner where drug dealers hang out, waiting for cars to come by to peddle their wares. It feels lifted from every movie about urban decay and crime we’ve ever seen. One such car pulls up, driven by Lucas (Jacob Grodnik), and flashes its lights. The camera’s positioned relatively far away as we watch a man walk up to the window, ask what he needs...and then the trunk pops open with an ominous thunk. Before we can process this sequence, we’re then introduced to a commercial of Glen Garrey (William Russ), a man running to be the District Attorney on a platform of cleaning up the streets. The commercial feels like a parody, with obvious actors portraying the “unclean streets” meandering in the background while Glen smacks at them with a broom.

Then we’re introduced to Sonny (Devin Das) and Noah (Ahmed Bharoocha), two Caste Insurance employees who are pressuring a newly married gay couple into buying their platinum level of life insurance. Immediately Keeping Company introduces the dichotomy between the two employees, as Noah talks about hope and love while Sonny barges in with the “facts” that their life could end at any moment; some “druggie low life” could shoot one of them and leave the other destitute. “The most important thing in life is to protect the ones we love,” they say, nabbing a platinum sale. As Noah and Sonny go on with their typical day selling insurance, Keeping Company effortlessly establishes the main conflict, not only between the two coworkers/”friends” but the film’s narrative itself.

Recently engaged Noah wants Sonny to be his forthcoming kid’s godfather. He believes they’re best friends and why wouldn’t best friends want to help each other out. But Sonny’s been raised to always reach for that next gold rung on the ladder. A brief interaction with Sonny’s father Mr. Reddy (Bernard White) further widens the divide between the two coworkers as he reminds Sonny that while he’s doing well selling insurance, he’s sharing the spotlight with Noah. Then a meeting with Caste’s CEO Paula (Gillian Vigman) cements the idea: “People like us, we’re sharks. And we will do whatever it takes to survive,” she tells Sonny, chumming the waters with the possibility of a promotion to VP of Sales.

That maxim gets tested when Noah and Sonny have a literal run-in with Lucas and chase him back to his house, first to get his insurance and then, upon realizing Lucas doesn’t have insurance, to get him signed up. Before you know it, the two men are chained in Lucas’s basement while Lucas and his elusive Grandma (Suzanne Savoy) plot what to do with the pair.

Keeping Company is filled with ideas of self-worth and how people approach the world. But it’s also a viciously funny satire of corporate culture and the ends people are forced to go to to realize the capitalist dream of wealth. Written by Devin Das (who plays Sonny) and Josh Wallace (also the director), the film examines the way false societal threats are used by those in power to create more power. Almost all of the characters are unsavory and feel just barely removed from the types of people the Coen brothers write about.

The three main characters (Lucas, Sonny and Noah) provide fascinating foils of each other, to the point that it’s hard to know who the main protagonist is. This works to the film’s advantage as it subverts expectations and genres throughout. While Lucas and his insidious house of death presents him as the villain, all three characters are being crushed, in a way, by their capitalistic overlords. An easy example of this would be the insurance company that Sonny and Noah works for, with its pyramid logo and Caste’s literal definition providing an easy metaphor. But Lucas is also stuck in a never-ending cycle of abuse that stems from his mysterious grandma and her nefarious purposes. Ultimately, all three characters feel like pawns in a game of corporate one-upmanship of this culture of eat or be eaten.

With a slender 81 minute runtime, Keeping Company somehow tackles a meaty subject and uses the side stories involving Garrey’s run for DA, Sonny’s father’s plans for a loan and Paula’s attempts to fix Caste’s books as additives to the main conflict Sonny and Noah find themselves in. It adds a level of fatalism to the plot so that by the time things become unhinged in the third act, there’s an authentic level of tragedy underlying the comedy. The murderous nature of the house to two find themselves in feeds into the horrors of capitalism and greed in a fascinating ouroboros of capitalism. By the time the reveals happen in the third act, Josh Wallace manages to pull all of the disparate stories together in one fell swoop of cinematography and music. And as the film barrels towards its viciously cynical ending, it reveals the true tragedy of the disparate storylines in one final image of self-congratulatory capitalism run amuck.

Keeping Company is a savage satire that brought to mind the same level of nihilistic triumph that The Columnist gave me. This is one not to miss.