Management is a quirky little wish fulfillment fantasy for lonely nice guys that comes completely undone when it brings too many contrived and conventional romantic comedy clichés into the mix. It trades subtlety and dysfunctional realism for overly broad comedy and reaches for meaning that it never really earns.
Mike (Steve Zahn) is the night manager at his parents motel. He's the classic 30something guy who still lives like he's in his teens, with no ambition to ever be more than that. Then he falls in love with a woman who checks into the motel one night. Well, Mike actually falls in love with her butt, since he only sees her from behind at first. Sue (Jennifer Aniston) is a traveling saleswoman who doesn't quite know what to make of Mike and his pathetically inept attempts at romance, but she responds to his neediness enough to throw him a roll in the hay before she has to check out. Mike then spends every last dime he has to fly across the country and visit Sue. She's a little taken aback but can't resist his harmless sincerity and indulges his romantic fantasies for a while before sending Mike back to his mom and dad.
A tortured long-distance relationship continues for a while but when Mike gets another chance to visit Sue, he learns she's moved all the way across the country to get back together with an old boyfriend. Mike decides to follow her and that's where the story falls down and dies. What had been sweet and original becomes fake and predictable, with Mike even picking up a wacky best friend and indulging in an opaque journey of self-discovery. The movie even ends in a way that makes you wonder if writer/director Stephen Belber forgot what the original point of his story was.
The best thing about Management is the acting of Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston. Zahn is given a character who behaves like a deranged stalker for most of the film. The script could have made Mike into a serial killer and it wouldn't have been that surprising, but Zahn is able to drain away all of Mike's potentially unsettling creepiness and make him likably pitiful. Aniston gives probably her most nuanced and affecting performance since The Good Girl, playing an unhappy adult who finds some solace with Mike's immature devotion but can't ignore how emotionally stunted he is. You can never forget how unbelievable it is that a well-intentioned but hapless loser like Mike could ever wind up with a successful beauty like Sue, but Zahn and Aniston interact so well that you won't care.
Unfortunately, that relationship is largely abandoned for the second half of the movie and it runs through fairly typical rom-com paces. Mike spends far more time with the new wacky best friend the film gives him than he does with Sue, and when the movie does bring Mike and Sue back together it's with a maudlin tone that is out of step with either the sweet, quirky beginning or the broad, almost slapstickish comedy of the middle.
Writer/director Belber came up with two great characters and cast two wonderful actors to play them, but then he didn't let their story unfold organically. Instead of letting Mike and Sue experience the limitations of their unequal relationship, Belber wields The Almighty Plot Hammer to keep them apart. So instead of feeling the real pain Mike and Sue would inflict on each other as their romantic dreams collided with reality, there's a bunch of manufactured angst that covers up how unhealthy Mike and Sue's relationship actually is.
I mean, a guy knows a woman for 48 hours and decides to fly across the country to see her? She sees him show up at her office and doesn't immediately tell him to get lost? Then after stringing him along, she gets back with an old boyfriend and moves without telling him and he follows her to her new home on the other side of the country? These are desperate and mean actions, yet Mike and Sue never have to accept or deal with that because the story never allows them too.
Zahn and Aniston are great. Management is not.
Mike (Steve Zahn) is the night manager at his parents motel. He's the classic 30something guy who still lives like he's in his teens, with no ambition to ever be more than that. Then he falls in love with a woman who checks into the motel one night. Well, Mike actually falls in love with her butt, since he only sees her from behind at first. Sue (Jennifer Aniston) is a traveling saleswoman who doesn't quite know what to make of Mike and his pathetically inept attempts at romance, but she responds to his neediness enough to throw him a roll in the hay before she has to check out. Mike then spends every last dime he has to fly across the country and visit Sue. She's a little taken aback but can't resist his harmless sincerity and indulges his romantic fantasies for a while before sending Mike back to his mom and dad.
A tortured long-distance relationship continues for a while but when Mike gets another chance to visit Sue, he learns she's moved all the way across the country to get back together with an old boyfriend. Mike decides to follow her and that's where the story falls down and dies. What had been sweet and original becomes fake and predictable, with Mike even picking up a wacky best friend and indulging in an opaque journey of self-discovery. The movie even ends in a way that makes you wonder if writer/director Stephen Belber forgot what the original point of his story was.
The best thing about Management is the acting of Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston. Zahn is given a character who behaves like a deranged stalker for most of the film. The script could have made Mike into a serial killer and it wouldn't have been that surprising, but Zahn is able to drain away all of Mike's potentially unsettling creepiness and make him likably pitiful. Aniston gives probably her most nuanced and affecting performance since The Good Girl, playing an unhappy adult who finds some solace with Mike's immature devotion but can't ignore how emotionally stunted he is. You can never forget how unbelievable it is that a well-intentioned but hapless loser like Mike could ever wind up with a successful beauty like Sue, but Zahn and Aniston interact so well that you won't care.
Unfortunately, that relationship is largely abandoned for the second half of the movie and it runs through fairly typical rom-com paces. Mike spends far more time with the new wacky best friend the film gives him than he does with Sue, and when the movie does bring Mike and Sue back together it's with a maudlin tone that is out of step with either the sweet, quirky beginning or the broad, almost slapstickish comedy of the middle.
Writer/director Belber came up with two great characters and cast two wonderful actors to play them, but then he didn't let their story unfold organically. Instead of letting Mike and Sue experience the limitations of their unequal relationship, Belber wields The Almighty Plot Hammer to keep them apart. So instead of feeling the real pain Mike and Sue would inflict on each other as their romantic dreams collided with reality, there's a bunch of manufactured angst that covers up how unhealthy Mike and Sue's relationship actually is.
I mean, a guy knows a woman for 48 hours and decides to fly across the country to see her? She sees him show up at her office and doesn't immediately tell him to get lost? Then after stringing him along, she gets back with an old boyfriend and moves without telling him and he follows her to her new home on the other side of the country? These are desperate and mean actions, yet Mike and Sue never have to accept or deal with that because the story never allows them too.
Zahn and Aniston are great. Management is not.