Susan Granger’s review of “Management” (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Once again, Jennifer Aniston tries to assert her big-screen presence in this tepid comedy, hiding her trademark blond tresses under an unflattering brown wig.
Sue Claussen (Aniston) is a traveling saleswoman passing through Kingman, Arizona, who checks into the seedy roadside motel owned by Mike Cranshaw’s parents (Fred Ward, Margo Martindale). Smitten-at-first-sight, affable Mike (Steve Zahn) delivers a bottle of wine “compliments of the management” and tries to strike up a relationship – with little success at first, particularly since she’s heavily into recycling and he isn’t.
Based in Maryland, stressed-out Sue sells nondescript, commercial paintings for a company called Corporate Bliss, and the past history of her love life has been filled with disappointments. After a series of Sue’s motel visits, a succession of champagne sipping from plastic sups and a bizarre sexual encounter, a ‘quickie’ in the laundry room, Mike impetuously flies across country to Baltimore to ‘surprise’ Sue at work.
Predictably, that trip ends disastrously, and Sue moves into a McMansion with her punk rocker-turned-yogurt mogul ex-boyfriend Jano (Woody Harrelson) in Aberdeen, Washington, hoping to ‘make a difference’ in his charity operations. But Mike’s creepy fervor will not be denied so he continues to pursue her persistently with the best of intentions, detouring for four months into Zen Buddhism and eventually befriending a waiter (James Liao) in a Chinese restaurant who serves as his sidekick.
Obviously influenced by the success of “Knocked Up,” screenwriter/director Stephen Belber (“Tape,” “The Laramie Project”) teams an uptight, upscale, practical gal with a kind-hearted, emotionally-immature, laid-back guy, but he fails to create three-dimensional characters, heaping contrivance upon contrivance, never achieving a shred of believability. Timed at 93 minutes, it seems like a tedious two hours, leading one to wonder if there really is a curse on the Emmy award-winning cast of “Friends.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Management” is an incoherent, uneven, flimsy 4, exploring the silly, sweet side of stalking. It should have gone straight-to-video.
