Review: ‘Management’ Should Go Back to School
by Mike LongI went to see Management because Steve Zahn is in it, and I’ll see him in anything. Steve Zahn turns out to be pretty much the only reason to see Management, and then only if you’re a big Steve Zahn fan, and then only if there’s nothing else to do, because even his always-fun appearance cannot rescue this picture, ostensibly an arthouse vehicle for Jennifer Aniston. (And if you needed any more proof that people don’t go to see Jennifer Aniston in a movie but go to see movies that just happen to have Jennifer Aniston in them, Management is Exhibit A. This weekend, the Aniston picture made only a little more money than Taken, which was released 16 weeks ago and is now available on DVD.)
Zahn plays a slacker (Yeah, what else is new, but he’s so good at it!) wasting away as the night manager at his parents’ rural motel. Aniston sells motel owners the painted-in-bulk art you find in motel rooms. For reasons that are never made clear, she doesn’t try to sell Zahn and his parents any art. She’s in the tiny town to sell to someone else — which made me wonder…
A) Just how many other third-tier motels does this little town have?
B) How much does this bottom-shelf art go for that a salesperson can make enough money selling it in such small quantities to justify flying across the country to close the deal?
Bonehead Zahn falls for middle-management Aniston. She feels no chemistry, so in exchange for leaving her alone she proposes that she will allow him to “touch my butt.” As you might imagine, neither of them sticks to the “leave me alone” part of the deal, and a second encounter inspires Zahn’s cross-country pursuit of Aniston.
It’s a funny premise that’s been done before (except for the butt-touching), but there’s always room for a fresh attempt. The problem here is that Management is populated by people we are never made to care about. It is further marred by long passages that go nowhere carried out by people whose backgrounds and motivations are largely a mystery. For us to care about Zahn’s goofy character, we need a reason to like him. We never get it. Aniston’s character seems just simple-minded; she is not curious or ambitious, and we don’t know why she lacks these or other basic characteristics that interesting people usually have. That’s the heart of it, really: these people are given some interesting things to do, but they are not portrayed as interesting people. The characters are simply participants—actors, if you will—in various scenes that fail to engage the audience emotionally.
The movie suffers further from radical shifts in tone: One minute, it’s calm and romantic, then it’s surreal (an Airplane-style episode of Buddhist monks playing volleyball with Steve Zahn? Really?), then it’s supposed to be touching. Even that sort of thing can work, since life itself sometimes gives us radical changes in tone, but it only works in the movies when we care about the people it’s happening to.
Management needs a better script, a better director, or both.
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34 Comments
Steve Zahn has saved, or nearly saved several otherwise mundane movies from That Thing You Do to Sahara. But he has rarely been the lead, so his characters were usually allowed to go off on a few tangents of their own without offending the sensibilities of the writers, producers or directors. It sounds like that might be a problem for him this time, but I don't think that will keep me away from NetFlix over it.
I'm going to have to agree with you. . . this time.
I have always like Zahn as the sidekick. I'm not sure he can pull of a movie by himself. And while I kind of like Jennifer Aniston, she's been unable to carry a movie either.
I am getting SICK of slacker movies. Why has Hollywood fallen in love with the slacker? When they are looking for a protagonist, how the heck can anyone in their right mind say, "yeah, we need an unbathed, unmotivated, dipsh..t as out hero!" Puuhleez.
OK. But let's not make a habit of this.
Ok, I disagree. We should make a habit of agreeing.
(Try and figure that one out!)
Lawyers don't have to make sense. It's one of the percs.
Andrew, real men are too threatening. Hence, Steve Zahn instead of say, Damien Lewis or Adam Baldwin as male leads.
Ain't that the truth!
We alone have the power to generate paradoxes throughout the universe. . . or at least, when we do it, we don't rip apart the space/time continuum.
I think that's probably right. . . sadly.
OFGS…
Andrew…Lawhawk… Would you guys just get a room already?
A courtroom?
Wait a minute. . . now I get what you're saying. I think I've been insulted (Lawhawk may have been too).
Guess I should add, "not that there's anything wrong with that."
No way. Andrew would pick the wrong room.
I'd watch Adam Baldwin read the gat damn phone book. Maybe a climactic scene with Christian Bale cursing him out but Adam slapping the mess out of him… I'd watch that. :p
*MissQuinn*
Ugh… I like Zahn (Loved him in That Thing You Do…. Presidential Flashcards) and Aniston but this looks like one of the cookie cutter halfas$ movies they have been pumping out at hyper speed…. So the questions that remains is…. Where are the real writers?
Have you seen Rescue Dawn? Zahn is a second fiddle in there too but he is fantastic.
You beat me to it. That's *exactly* what I had in mind.
I can't figure out why Aniston is famous.
I agree 100%, it doesn't make any sense.
If she is in a good movie, then it is good in spite of her, not because of her.
Immediately Office Space comes to mind in Jennifer's favor… and as that is in my top 3 all-time fave's, implying that somehow this is her first foray into 'art house' is a bit dis-ingenuous. So, I must defend – without having seen or heard about this new flick.
But I hope you are wrong, in the final analysis. I think JA does great justice to her roles, even more than they deserve in the scripting.
I'll get back to you and let you know if, in fact, you are wrong…
Probably b/c of the dolts movie makers have to employ these days. I bet 'slacker' is the easiet of characters, imo.
Amen to that. regardless of how one feels about Christian Bale personally, I think he's a phenominal actor and anyone who can hang with him, per se, on screen is a-ok in my book.
B/c she has a father whose an actor and she's beautiful. What else do you need to make it in Hollywood?
Altho, I enjoyed her performance in Picture Perfect, but then again, I'm a fan of Jay Mohr(sp?).
As a writer who sold a script last year, instead of most of the armchair quarterbacks commenting on here, I actually liked this movie. It did a little meandering, but Steve Zahn did a great job as a guy with wide-eyed naivete. Jennifer Aniston had some poignant moments and while she seemed constrained, that's OK because it was part of the character. The movie did seem to meander a little, but all in all, it was a charming film. Some people complained that character was not a stalker. He was an idealist, and he believed in the power of love and his wanting to break out of his situation. Would I watch it a second time or own it on DVD? Probably not, but I'm glad I saw it. It was a sweet film and only cynics wouldn't have been able to see that sweetness.
The real writers are here. We just can't get the money to make the good stuff.
I saw the movie and Zahn definitely carried it. It's about time he got the lead.
Ironically, in real life, Steve Zahn is said to be a regular guy, outdoors type. A man who spends his time hunting and fishing instead of spending his days scheduling his next face peel, manicure or colonic.
On the flip side, Jennifer Aniston has made a mint out of portraying a "Pretty girl next door" type. In spite of her being a born and bred bi-coastal Hollywood offspring.
That's really sad…. I am tired of the same plotless crap… :/ I keep listening to new music artists and reading new authors thinking how creative they are… but then when I go to the movies I am bored…. *sigh*
Ok mini rant over…
Loved Zahn as Monk's half brother.
To be fair. Steve is hilarious just watching him and jennifer is two hours of bliss, just watching her.
Movie, what move?
It's anything that was popular once. They will do it over and over because an original thought is very rare in Hollywood. It's like "Hey, now we will have the guy walk in wearing the neck brace, everybody thinks that's funny"
About 3 months ago one of other bloggers on this site, Steve Mason, had this ridiculous article about who sells more movie tickets – Brad Pitt or Jennifer Aniston. At the time he wrote his story Marley & Me had beated The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at the box office and He's Just Not That Into You opened at #1 the weekend it came out. On the face of it his argument was spacious and just plain silly. I wrote a rather lengthy reply pointing out that Aniston's 2 movies were based on very popular best-selling books – Marley & Me sold over 5 million copies, HJNTIY almost 2 million, that she was NOT the lead in her films (third fiddle to Owen Wilson & 22 dogs; and 5th fiddle in an ensemble respectively) and the other movies he listed as hits for Aniston were in reality vehicles for male comedic actors who were big box office draws – Stiller, Carrey and Vaughn.
The Pitt movies he compared Aniston's "hits" to were things like Babel and Jesse James. My argument was that Pitt's movies weren't meant to be box office smashes and that Pitt himself had recently stated that he didn't feel like he had anything left to prove and the movies he does now are things that interest him and he believes if they interest him then they'll interest "A FEW OTHERS" as well. I then stated Aniston couldn't open a movie if her's is the biggest name above the title. In short – no one goes to the movies specifically to see Jennifer Aniston. Management, like Rumor Has It and Derailed before it, proves my point. Duh. How Steve Mason got a job as a movie box office analyst is beyond me.
This is a most fair minded review. Even though you're a fan of Zahn you did not excuse the poor script. And instead of giving the bottle blonde golden girl a pass because you're so dazzled by the hair or constant images of her in a bikini or less, you spoke the truth: No one goes to see her – they go to see Stiller, Vaughn, Owen or even Marley the dog. Not her.
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