Jennifer Aniston's travelling art saleswoman fends off the unwanted affections of Steve Zahn's motel manager. Offbeat romantic comedy from first-time director Stephen Belber
It's a formula we've seen before: boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, girl isn't so smitten. But while (500) Days Of Summer and other, quirkier tales of love unrequited add a winsome spin to romantic obsession, Management is more of a stalker's lament.
Not that there's anything particularly romantic about the initial flirtation between Mike (Steve Zahn), who works at his parents' motel, and corporate art saleswoman Sue (Jennifer Aniston). It's not even a flirtation, more an invasion of personal space. After he knocks on her door with gifts of wine and champagne, supposedly compliments of the motel's management, Sue lets Mike touch her backside in a scene so cringingly clinical you're sure they'll never get it on.
So it jars a little when Sue follows this up with a romp in the laundry room. For Mike, this is a green light: his cue to buy a one-way ticket, fly across the country and turn up at her workplace looking like a lost puppy dog. Mike's obsession isn't creepy, it's just goofy and pathetic. He writes haikus and leaves endless messages. Rather than giving up hope when Sue gets back together with unpleasant ex-boyfriend Jango (Woody Harrelson), an ex-punk with a frozen yoghurt empire and a penchant for pit bull dogs, he simply skydives into her swimming pool.
This may sound like a slapstick moment, but Management isn't a physical comedy, any more than it's a romantic one. More than anything, it's a film about people with no respect for themselves. In Mike's case, it's as if he's never been within a vague radius of an attractive, intelligent girl before. His intentions are genuine, and he's smitten enough to follow Sue across the country, but there's a nagging sense that she's not so much a crush as a curiosity.
Not that there's anything particularly romantic about the initial flirtation between Mike (Steve Zahn), who works at his parents' motel, and corporate art saleswoman Sue (Jennifer Aniston). It's not even a flirtation, more an invasion of personal space. After he knocks on her door with gifts of wine and champagne, supposedly compliments of the motel's management, Sue lets Mike touch her backside in a scene so cringingly clinical you're sure they'll never get it on.
So it jars a little when Sue follows this up with a romp in the laundry room. For Mike, this is a green light: his cue to buy a one-way ticket, fly across the country and turn up at her workplace looking like a lost puppy dog. Mike's obsession isn't creepy, it's just goofy and pathetic. He writes haikus and leaves endless messages. Rather than giving up hope when Sue gets back together with unpleasant ex-boyfriend Jango (Woody Harrelson), an ex-punk with a frozen yoghurt empire and a penchant for pit bull dogs, he simply skydives into her swimming pool.
This may sound like a slapstick moment, but Management isn't a physical comedy, any more than it's a romantic one. More than anything, it's a film about people with no respect for themselves. In Mike's case, it's as if he's never been within a vague radius of an attractive, intelligent girl before. His intentions are genuine, and he's smitten enough to follow Sue across the country, but there's a nagging sense that she's not so much a crush as a curiosity.
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