Curious title, "Management." It comes from a very early scene when the character Mike is bringing a bottle of wine to the motel room of the character Sue, and when she says "Who is it?" he answers, "Management."
Kingman, Arizona in the year 2000 had a population of right at 20,000. It sits on I-40 and the historic Route 66, nearly half-way between Phoenix and Las Vegas.
The story starts in Kingman, at one of the town's small motels, when traveling salesperson, Jennifer Aniston as Sue Claussen, checks in. This is a family-run motel, and the couple's son is Steve Zahn as Mike. By all indications Mike is a pretty dull, pretty unambitious guy. When dad tells him to he cleans the pool, or unclogs a toilet. I suppose he just figures that is his lot in life, someday the motel will be his and he will continue doing what his dad and mom did.
But this fateful day he is absolutely smitten with Sue. She is pretty and neat, a business woman that Mike probably rarely sees. So, being on the night shift, Mike figures out a way to see her again. He digs into the back storage and finds a very old bottle of cheap white wine, and goes up to room 203, and knocks with the excuse that he is there to give their guest a free bottle of wine. He insists on opening it, and when Sue tastes it she makes quite a face. But she was polite and bid him farewell.
But Mike, as dull as he may be, was persistent. The next night he went up with a bottle of cheap Champagne, with the excuse that 2nd night guests get that. We sort of feel for Mike and his pathetic existence, and we know this type of approach never works. In a funny if also totally improbable scene Sue makes Mike an offer, if she lets him feel her butt, will he go and leave her alone?
All that happens in the opening minutes of the movie, which sets up Mike's ill-advised pursuit of Sue. Surely a smart businesswoman from Maryland would never find anything remotely attractive in this small motel handyman in Kingman, Arizona. But Mike never learned the art of quitting, and he continues to pursue her, even showing up in Maryland on a one-way ticket.
The other key character is Woody Harrelson as Jango, a former punk musician who now has turned to yogurt for his fortune in Washington state. He is an old boyfriend of Sue's and when it looks like they might reconcile Mike's pursuit takes on a different tenor.
As I already said, this premise should not work. This should be a flop of a movie. But it isn't. It is actually a very entertaining movie with a good message. Aniston and Zahn develop an on-screen chemistry that I didn't believe possible.
SPOILERS: Sue does in fact move in with Jango, but we can see she can't be happy with this oddball guy. As she had told Mike when they were visiting once, her real passion would be to run a soup kitchen for the homeless. Meanwhile Mike's mom died and dad signed the deed for the motel over to him. He decided he would turn it into a gathering place for the homeless, along with a soup kitchen, and he and Sue were destined to do it together.
Kingman, Arizona in the year 2000 had a population of right at 20,000. It sits on I-40 and the historic Route 66, nearly half-way between Phoenix and Las Vegas.
The story starts in Kingman, at one of the town's small motels, when traveling salesperson, Jennifer Aniston as Sue Claussen, checks in. This is a family-run motel, and the couple's son is Steve Zahn as Mike. By all indications Mike is a pretty dull, pretty unambitious guy. When dad tells him to he cleans the pool, or unclogs a toilet. I suppose he just figures that is his lot in life, someday the motel will be his and he will continue doing what his dad and mom did.
But this fateful day he is absolutely smitten with Sue. She is pretty and neat, a business woman that Mike probably rarely sees. So, being on the night shift, Mike figures out a way to see her again. He digs into the back storage and finds a very old bottle of cheap white wine, and goes up to room 203, and knocks with the excuse that he is there to give their guest a free bottle of wine. He insists on opening it, and when Sue tastes it she makes quite a face. But she was polite and bid him farewell.
But Mike, as dull as he may be, was persistent. The next night he went up with a bottle of cheap Champagne, with the excuse that 2nd night guests get that. We sort of feel for Mike and his pathetic existence, and we know this type of approach never works. In a funny if also totally improbable scene Sue makes Mike an offer, if she lets him feel her butt, will he go and leave her alone?
All that happens in the opening minutes of the movie, which sets up Mike's ill-advised pursuit of Sue. Surely a smart businesswoman from Maryland would never find anything remotely attractive in this small motel handyman in Kingman, Arizona. But Mike never learned the art of quitting, and he continues to pursue her, even showing up in Maryland on a one-way ticket.
The other key character is Woody Harrelson as Jango, a former punk musician who now has turned to yogurt for his fortune in Washington state. He is an old boyfriend of Sue's and when it looks like they might reconcile Mike's pursuit takes on a different tenor.
As I already said, this premise should not work. This should be a flop of a movie. But it isn't. It is actually a very entertaining movie with a good message. Aniston and Zahn develop an on-screen chemistry that I didn't believe possible.
SPOILERS: Sue does in fact move in with Jango, but we can see she can't be happy with this oddball guy. As she had told Mike when they were visiting once, her real passion would be to run a soup kitchen for the homeless. Meanwhile Mike's mom died and dad signed the deed for the motel over to him. He decided he would turn it into a gathering place for the homeless, along with a soup kitchen, and he and Sue were destined to do it together.