In grade school, I considered it a good day if I played well with my classmates. Come high school, a semester became a success as long as it yielded good grades and high test scores. In college, I figured I was doing well as long as I had some idea what I wanted to do afterwards. And now, as much as I wish it wasn't, and I know it really isn't, it's pretty much all about the job.

Open The Promotion. Written and directed by Steve Conrad, the screenwriter of The Pursuit of Happyness, the film deals with similar themes of struggling to achieve career success and trying support a family. While neither of the central characters are in as dire straits as Chris Gardner, there is the sense that to move forward with their lives and as men, they need the promotion that they both seek. Although money is definitely a factor, the story focuses more on what career advancement means to each man's sense value. And where The Pursuit of Happyness deals with the subject in an almost painfully heart-wrenching manner, The Promotion presents its tale in a more comedic (yet surprisingly touching) package that cannot help but keep you smiling all the way through.

At the center of the The Promotion are two assistant managers at a local branch of a corporate grocery chain. Doug (Seann William Scott) is 33, married, and a longtime employee of his neighborhood's already existing branch of the grocery store. Richard (John C. Reilly) is slightly older, a husband and father, and recently arrived from the chain's Canadian branch. When it is announced that the chain will be opening a new branch of the store nearby, they both put in their application to be its manager.

Sound like a wide-open door for grown men to act like boys and frat boy sabotage tactics to take over the entire movie? Actually, it's not at all. Even though both Scott and Reilly are known for playing a number of, shall we say, less than mature characters, Doug and Richard both end up proving that they are each men worthy of respect. Instead of becoming a race to see who can bring the other down, their pursuit reveals what it looks like to give even the most ridiculous uphill battle your best. And as each of their stories unfolds, you really do wish they both could win.

The moment the movie opens, both the humor and the frustration of their current situation is front and center. From security guards who sleep in customers' cars to abusive patrons, complaint cards filled with profanity, and teenage gangbangers who never leave the store's parking lot, the life-in-the day portrait of an assistant grocery store manager is both hilarious and one you can understand wanting to get out of. And even though each man is doing the best job he can, you see that some days just become no-win situations.

If the crazy customer of the day isn't the one throwing a wrench into their best efforts to prove themselves, then there's always the fact that none of us are perfect either. Sometimes tater tots must be thrown. Others times the wrong word comes out at the wrong time. And no matter how hard we try, some days our assumptions and misunderstandings can't help but land us in the middle of circle with a bag on our head and our shirt on the floor as we try to explain that in Canada cutting the cheese is solely an expression used in the deli, and cracking the cheeses is, well, you know&ellips;

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