Management

Movie review from The Movie Snob

Management (B+). I went into this independent flick with low expectations. The Dallas Morning News reviewer gave it only a C, and I saw a trailer that made it look absolutely terrible. But it stars the irrepressible Steve Zahn (That Thing You Do!), not to mention Jennifer Aniston (Office Space), so I resolved to give it a chance (at a matinee). I was pleasantly surprised. Zahn is well-cast as Mike, a man-child who works (and lives) at a motel owned by his parents in a small town in Arizona. Aniston is Sue, an employee of a company back East that deals in corporate art, i.e., paintings you see in hotel rooms. Mike is understandably smitten when Sue checks into the motel, and he sets out to romance Sue in his own inept fashion--he's rather like an older and much less worldly Lloyd Dobler from Say Anything. His stalkerish behavior would make him totally unsympathetic--except that Sue, who is sad and dissatisfied with her own life, is not totally unreceptive to Mike's overtures during her brief stay. That's all the excuse Mike needs to spend his life savings on a one-way ticket to Baltimore, where he shows up at her office unannounced. Things unspool from there. Woody Harrelson (White Men Can't Jump), who is not one of my favorite actors, is perfect as Sue's former boyfriend Jango, a former punk-rocker turned yogurt mogul. Maybe it was just my low expectations, but I really enjoyed this movie.