I get that there’s a certain amount of leeway we’re supposed to give to romantic comedies, whether it’s believing that two people who meet in a cute but wacky way will almost immediately discover that they’re meant for each other or trusting that two utterly incompatible lovers will overcome the fact that they have nothing in common and then spend the rest of their lives together in bliss.
When a movie tries to pass off stalkerish behavior as cute, however, and when the object of said stalking doesn’t immediately run for a restraining order, it becomes impossible for me to just suspend my disbelief and follow a movie’s agenda of romance.
Which brings us to “Management,” a movie that has plenty of good things going for it but ultimately can’t overcome the extremely inappropriate elephant in the room.
Steve Zahn stars as Mike, a directionless adult managing and living at his parents’ motel in Arizona. We can tell by his misshapen sweatshirt, the droopy angle of his cigarette ash and the hangdog expression on his face (even during yoga class) that he doesn’t have anything in his life that gives him joy.
Enter Sue (Jennifer Aniston), a salesperson of mass-produced corporate wall art, who spends a few nights at the motel on business. Mike awkwardly tries to woo her with bottles of wine he claims are “gifts from the management,” and Sue eventually relents enough to allow Mike to feel up her derrière, so he won’t feel his entire attempt at seduction was a flop. That butt-touch must have charmed her, because the next morning Sue seduces Mike in the laundry room. Then she leaves.
Mike then travels to Maryland, smitten. Sue is surprised to see him and tells him he can’t stay long. (This is the part where, in the world of rational human beings, she calls security to get him out of her office.) They spend a few days together being charming, then he heads for home. A few months later, she stays at the motel again, and Mike and Sue hang out, going together to have Chinese food, taking a yoga class, and visiting Mike’s ailing mom (the amazing Margo Martindale, who makes any movie better just by showing up).
Sue leaves again, and Mike keeps chasing her, first to Maryland again and then cross-country to the Pacific Northwest, where Sue has gone to reunite with her ex, Django (Woody Harrelson), a former punk rocker-turned–yogurt entrepreneur.
Can Mike finally have a life so that he can make Sue the love of it? Will Sue sacrifice the material comforts of living with Django and run off with Mike?
Zahn and Aniston spark off each other interestingly, and it’s always a pleasure to see Martindale, but “Management” fails its cast by keeping the Mike-and-Sue relationship from ever feeling logical. And yes, romance isn’t about logic, but seriously — the way Mike keeps popping up in Sue’s life, unbidded, from a long distance, comes off as more than just a bit creepy and not at all charming.
This winds up being a romantic comedy about two people who, yes, belong together, but whose methods of courtship make the entire relationship untenable. It pretends to be a fine romance, but in reality it would all be evidence for the prosecution.
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