Management (2009)

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Mike, the night manager of his parent's Arizona motel, is a loner; he has no life. When we meet him he is living in one of the upstairs room of the complex. Mike suddenly awakens to show emotion, when Sue Classens, a sales rep for motel art work, stops at the inn. She is seen to Mike as a pleasant distraction. The first night he knocks on her door to offer a complimentary bottle of wine, something that puzzles Sue. What does he really want, she wonders. On her second night, he offers her a bottle of champagne. If Sue had doubts about the intentions of this man, she counteracts with her own proposal: Would he like to touch her butt? It is an offer no man could refuse.Sue, in turn, finds herself in a quandary. She is based in Baltimore. She is probably a girl with low self esteem who finds it is safe having sex with Mike on the day she was departing, but little did she think of the consequences of her actions. Mike is smitten. He has to go see her, and if possible stay with her. Sue is not exactly happy to see Mike come back into her life, so she sends him packing back to Arizona. Mike does not give up. When he finds out she has moved to Washington state, he makes it his priority. Unfortunately, Sue has gone back to her ex-punk boyfriend, now a businessman with a yogurt business. Will Mike impress Sue? This is an indie film that came as a surprise when it turned up on a cable channel. Not having seen it, we decided to take a look. Directed and written by Stephen Belber, the film has a combination of styles, but it pays off because it does not pretends to be anything but a small film. The success of "Management" depended heavily on its star, Jennifer Aniston, an underrated actress whose choices always tend to be big studio features which only requires her to be pretty. As she clearly showed in "The Good Girl", it pays to have a good director behind her whom she trusts totally. This is not exactly what one would expect to be one of her first choices, but playing it subtly, Ms. Aniston's work seems to be the best excuse to watch "Management".A tamed Steve Zahn plays Mike with a new perspective, something that pays off for him. The combination of this actor and Ms. Aniston pays in sweet ways. Woody Harrelson does another of his specialties with his Jango, although he is seen briefly. The wonderful Margo Martindale, appears as Mike's mother, but her screen time is only limited. The same goes for Fred Ward, the enigmatic father. Director Stephen Belber does a fine job in his film debut.

Mike (Steve Zahn) is a hapless young man stuck in Arizona; Sue (Jennifer Aniston) is a young career woman on the move all over the country. He thinks he has something special with her but she just views his actions as inappropriate.Aniston's Sue comes across as mature and diplomatic—very different than Rachel and her other recent characters. While Steve Zahn's character was very well written. He's very awkward and inexperienced around women and his use of words shows that perfectly and humorously. He's also very observant and a good judge of character. These characteristics help him build a connection with Sue and move the film forward.At times, the structure of the story drags the film down a bit. The beginning is about introducing the characters and the second half has a more active plot when we meet Sue's on-again, off-again, and on-again boyfriend Janga (Woody Harrelson) and Mike gets closer to sorting out his life. The two halves aren't connected as well as they could have been but there is a bit of subdued humour sprinkled throughout."Management" is just a romantic comedy, but it has better written humour than most in the genre and much better written characters. I recommend it for its cute performances by Aniston and Zahn and for the little bit of inspiration that such real and developed characters can provide.

This movie started out so boring that I stopped watching it after ten minutes of NOTHING happening but Aniston's character sitting in a motel room and Zahn's character entering and leaving with bottles of alcohol. I gave this movie another chance, and that is all I will ever give it. None of the characters have any point, any motivation to do anything, especially Woody Harrelson's character. I'm sad he's even affiliated with this movie. Aniston works for a company that sounds totally made-up and stupid, Corporate Bliss, and yet has some unfounded yearning to help homeless people. Zahn is just a creep that wants to get some from her because he likes her butt. So when Aniston stays at the motel, she lets him touch her butt and the next day she decides to have sex with him because, I guess he just wasn't creepy enough. So she goes home to her pointless life in this plot less movie, only to have Zahn show up at her place of work. So what do they do? They go play soccer together, what all people who have just met and had a one-night stand and then travel across the country do. Then he creepily stays at her house and sneaks into the bed to watch her sleep. I didn't find this cute at all nor charming, and the dialogue is inappropriate for the situation. Nothing is believable and every character is so one-dimensional it hurts. So next morning they go to a carnival!! How fun! Why did Mike even go to see her? Why did we see a scene of Aniston giving out meal vouchers to homeless people? That didn't warm our hearts at all. No feeling in this movie.So after the carnival Zahn reviews how much the homeless people and soccer gals love Aniston, and now we know why those pointless scenes were thrown in there. Did a fourth grader write this?So he leaves, and before we can feel anything, after the movie wastes more of our time by showing shots of the "passage of time", there Aniston is back at the hotel. Meanhwhile all we have learned is that Zahn is at the hotel and doing nothing but being a boring person.They then share a supposedly meaningful yoga class, where we further learn NOTHING or have any emotional investment in the characters. Aniston reveals her plans to open a homeless shelter. The writers (if there were any) are just pulling from thin air.Then all of a sudden Zahn takes her to his mother's house, where she is dying, and we had no investment in her so when she dies it DOESN'T MATTER! Sure we can think about what it's like to lose someone, but it does nothing to further the plot (or lack thereof), and is just awkward. I don't usually visit terminally ill family members of people I just met, unless I work at a hospital. These people have no past, no present, and no future, until Woody Harrelson's character is introduced after a long preview about how he is an ex-punk. All these scenes with "Jango" (Harrelsens' character) are totally pointless and just serve as a villain and an empty shell of stupid along with all the other empty people.I gave this three stars because I did actually finish it, and there was a scene when Zahn becomes a Buddhist monk (I'm not making this up), and I found it particularly touching when another monk was talking about letting go of the past. The scene was beautiful and just gave me a break from the terrible movie I had been watching, and for a moment it was all right.Then I was forced back into the random spiral of nothingness, with Aniston ending up pregnant and unsure of the father. Wow. So Zahn uses the deed to the hotel his mother left him to go to Aniston and plan their homeless shelter together.I bought this for less than a dollar when a store was closing so i can't say I wasted the money. I thought it was a lot older when I watched it, because all the decor is awful, the clothes are awful, and most of the scenes are awful. When I saw it was from 2008 I was shocked. Even the cover looked like it was from the nineties or at least 2000s. There had to have been some explanation for all the bad visuals and just overall bad movie. But alas, it was made two years ago.There were a few laughable moments, but from minor characters that had less of a point.I can understand what they were trying to do with this movie, but I can't understand why anyone would overly like this movie because of all the shallow, random, and plot less things in this movie.There was a good song too. There's another star.

I did not know what to expect of 'Management' but seeing that Steve Zahn and Jennifer Aniston star in it together, I wanted to see it. 'Management' is an unconventional romantic comedy but not the saccharine glossy kind that Hollywood churns out by dozens every year. Belber's film is rather subtle and atmospheric while also character driven. The humour is dry. In a way it reminded me of '500 Days of Summer' in the way it's treated but 'Management' very much tells its own story.Zahn and Aniston form an odd pair which is one of the other things that attracted me towards these movies. I tend to prefer unusual romantic comedies that centre around odd couples formed by a refreshing pair of actors (such as Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek in 'Fools Rush In' or Johnny Depp and Mary Stuart Masterson in 'Benny and Joon'). Zahn is first rate as the goofy motel manager who was once popular. Aniston delivers a restrained performance showing her growth as an actress. Margo Martindale, Woody Harrelson and James Hiroyuki Liao lend fine support.The execution is wonderful. The soundtrack is terrific and the visuals are photogenic and bring about a lyrical feel. They are suitably underused as to not intrude. The editing, cinematography and light effects are well done.Stephen Belber has made a charming and funny little movie. 'Management' is an underrated little gem.