MANAGEMENT

“MANAGEMENT” (Jennifer Aniston & Steve Zahn)

The first half of this film doesn’t work at all – it is kind of dumb & somewhat boring; then it gradually grabs your attention & you start to forgive it for the early faux paus.

Steve Zahn plays Mike; a guy bored out of his mind & badly in need of getting a life.
He works as the fix-it man & late night desk manager at the low-rent motel that his parents own. His world is jolted into meaning when Sue (Jennifer Aniston, looking very unglamorous) checks into the motel for a 2 night stay.
Sue is in town on business – she sells art to hotels & restaurants.
Trying to come up with a way to both impress & get her to realize his existence, Mike digs up a dusty bottle of wine from the motels cellar & offers it to Sue as a complimentary ‘welcome’ present.
Sue is pleasant toward Mike, but obviously uncomfortable with him being in her room, so she takes a quick sip of the wine & asks him to leave.
The next evening Mike shows up at her door with a complimentary bottle of champagne, which he says is given as way of a ‘thanks for saying an extra night’ gift.
Feeling a little more comfortable with him & realizing he’s relatively harmless; Sue invites Mike to share a sanitized plastic cup of bubbly with her. When dufus Mike comes right out & tells Sue she has a great butt. She asks him if he’d like to touch it. At first Mike is certain that she’s pulling his leg, but when she assures him that she will let him feel her behind with the stipulation that he leave her alone for the rest of her stay, Mike goes for broke.
This is where I felt this film would be a failure if they were to allow these two people to become ‘involved’. Mike showed Sue absolutely no respect by latching onto her derriere simply because she told him he could. To me, it felt like Sue was testing him & he failed miserably. The following morning, Sue flies completely out of character by coming on to Mike in the laundry room.
Then the story gets a little creepy as Mike shows up at Sue’s workplace in her hometown of Baltimore. Sue shows extremely poor judgment by allowing Mike to spend the night sleeping on the floor in her bedroom – I mean, this guy is a stalking motel hack that she’s known for 2 days! & wasn’t Norman Bates also a low-rent motel manager?
The highlight of the first half of ‘Management’ is the inclusion of Three Dog Night’s great rendition of Hoyt Axton’s “Never Been To Spain” (Much like “What Is Life” brought a much needed spark to ‘Away We Go’) as Mike travels across country to ‘stalk’ Sue.
For much of the film there is NO chemistry between Aniston & Zahn – they are both portrayed as ‘drab’ people living meaningless lives, & even as it tried to become ‘sweet’ by showing the couple handing out food coupons & beverages to the homeless, it suffered from the awkward, unbelievable beginning.
But gradually the film does produce a certain amount of charm, mainly thru Zahn’s performance as he continues to ‘stalk’ Sue to Aberdeen, Washington. A far-fetched parachuting scene initially made me roll my eyes, but then provided a nice comedic moment to salvage the ridiculous notion that a novice skydiver could hit an extremely small target on his initial jump.
Mike’s friendship with a young Asian man provides more chemistry than his ‘romance’ with Sue & Woody Harrelson’s cameo as Sue’s ex brought a little bit of life to the tale as well.
The film goes off on an odd tangent when a discouraged Mike becomes a Buddhist Monk, but I have to say that by the end of the movie I was rooting for Mike, the creepy stalker, to find happiness.
Am I glad that I saw “Management”? – Yes, I am.
Would I ever want to watch it again? - Probably not.
It was ‘different’, & despite the boring stretches it had originality going for it – I mean, who would think to make Aberdeen a location in their film?
& despite the fact that she doesn’t have outstanding acting skills, there is just something about Jennifer Aniston that I like – vulnerability, I guess; for something made me forgive her for all the dumb moves Sue makes in this movie...