Film Review: 'Management' can't manage its quirks
Indie production's too far out to make sense as comedy or romance
Jennifer Aniston is an unhappy traveling corporate art dealer who inexplicably allows herself to fall for her stalker, an awkward and infantile motel clerk played by Steve Zahn, in "Management," the latest misfire to make "indie" a dirty word.
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Suzanne Hanover/Samuel Goldwyn Films
Jennifer Aniston and Steve Zahn are oddball lovers in the equally oddball "Management."
Rated R for language
Length: 93 minutes
Released: May 15, 2009 LimitedScore: 2.0
Cast: Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn, Woody Harrelson, Collin Crowley, Dominic Fumusa
Director: Stephen BelberProducer: Marty Bowen
Writer: Stephen Belber
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Distributor: IDP/Samuel Goldwyn Films
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"You have a great butt," the flaky Mike (Zahn) tells the reserved Sue (Aniston), after showing up at the door of her motel room in Kingman, Ariz., with a bottle of cheap blush wine and a corkscrew. Sue is oddly flattered. Why? Because this is a "quirky" movie in which unconvincing behavior and unpersuasive plot twists are justified by the filmmakers as reflections of the unpredictable messiness of life. "OK, you can touch my butt, but then you got to go," Sue says.
Written by its first-time director, Stephen Belber, "Management" begins as an eccentric and sluggish courtship story (complete with the requisite strummy indie-pop soundtrack) before making a sudden turn into oddball comedy when Sue, seeking security, marries a punk rocker-turned-millionaire yogurt mogul (Woody Harrelson). Mike follows Sue to her new home in Aberdeen, Wash., and gets a job at a Chinese restaurant. He also tries to become a Buddhist monk, apparently because Belber thinks Zahn looks especially goofy in a saffron robe.
In a "Say Anything" moment, Mike shows up beneath Sue's window to perform an off-key version of Bad Company's "Feel Like Makin' Love" on some sort of homemade rollaway calliope. By this time, you may already have your fingers in your ears, to block such exchanges as this one: Mike: "You're ... incredibly sweet -- well, beneath." Sue: "Beneath what?" Mike: "Beneath the part that's not."
"Management" is playing exclusively at Malco's Ridgeway Four.
-- John Beifuss: 529-2394
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