A companheira de casa que você menciona é na verdade o pai de Bennett. Esta revisão de Emanuel Levy explica o significado da relação e também aponta que há são 5 relações pai-filho no filme:
I don't know if Gaghan subscribes to Freudian psychology, but one of the unifying structural elements of “Syriana” is intergenerational conflict, manifest in the troubled relationships between fathers and sons. There are no less than five sets of fathers and sons in the film...
Bennett Holiday and Bennett Holiday Sr. (Jeffrey Wright and William Charles Mitchell). Bennett is an ambitious Washington attorney at Sloan Whiting law firm, in charge of the task of guiding the Connex-Killen merger. It's in the company and the country's interest that the merger goes through. It also serves his personal ambitions. Bennett's upward mobility is complicated by his difficult relationship with his father, an alcoholic who faults his son for working for the establishment. While he has always denounced his father as a failure, as Bennett is drawn deeper into the morally ambiguous world of the industry, he starts to doubt his own right to judge his father's character.
Gaghan foi o escritor e diretor do filme. Os outros pares de pai e filho foram Bob e Robby Barnes (Bob se preocupa em perder seu filho quando ele vai para a faculdade), Bryan Woodman e seus dois filhos jovens (um se afoga na piscina), Emir Hamad Al-Subaai e seus dois filhos , O príncipe Nasir e o príncipe Meshal (o filho mais velho está na linha do trono, mas é muito reformista), e Saleem Ahmed Khan e Wasim Ahmed Khan (trabalhadores migrantes que sonham em voltar ao Paquistão).