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In "Management," Sue Claussen (Jennifer Aniston) isn't so much a character as a collection of quirky characteristics.
She's a Maryland resident who travels around the country selling commercial artwork to places like motels and hotels and, in her off hours, plays indoor soccer, is passionate about recycling and helping the homeless, and once dated a punk rocker turned organic-yogurt mogul.
Mike Cranshaw (Steve Zahn) only knows that she cuts a fetching figure in her business attire when she checks into his parents' Kingman Motor Inn in Arizona. He later knocks on her door with his version of a pickup line and a long forgotten bottle of wine: "Management! Welcome gift."
- Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn.
- Rating: R for language.
- Web site: www.managementfilm.com
After some rebuffs, a toast to happiness and an impulsive act, Sue drives away, safe in the knowledge that what happens in Kingman stays in Kingman. Until Mike decides to follow his heart to Baltimore, where he's a cross between an eager puppy and a slightly spooky stalker.
"Management," directed and written by Stephen Belber, tracks Mike, Sue and her onetime boyfriend (Woody Harrelson) as their paths cross and they mature in their own ways.
Belber created "Management" as a one-act play for a New York-based theater company. It's an inviting idea, pairing a Maryland saleswoman with an Arizona night manager in a town of 27,000; their lives have some similarities and yet they're adrift and longing for something or someone.
Aniston, trading her long highlighted-blond hair for shoulder-length reddish-brown tresses, does her best to make Sue seem believable, but Belber does her no favors. Zahn, a versatile and underappreciated actor (see "Rescue Dawn"), has an even harder task, although he shares some nice scenes with Margo Martindale and Fred Ward as his parents and James Liao as a newfound pal.
You can sense Belber working to turn a one-act play into a 90-minute movie. One fiery confrontation isn't enough to anchor "Management," and this romantic comedy grows more absurd with each oddball turn in the road. Belber is like a knitter who ends up with a sleeve -- or, in this case the character of Mike -- that is riddled with dropped stitches and twice as long as its mate.
