Management: Oh, Jennifer Aniston, We Tried to Warn You

Suzanne Hanover/Samuel Goldwyn Films

Oh, Woody, how can we stay mad at you?

Details

Opens at Uptown, Fri., July 10.

Rated R. 94 minutes.

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More About

• Jennifer Aniston
• Stephen Belber
• Steve Zahn
• Audrey Tautou
• Woody Harrelson

Each new superfluous Jennifer Aniston rom-com is already met with low expectations, but add some overcooked, middlebrow Indiewood quirk (skydiving into a pool while being shot by a BB gun?) and you've got cinema's purest shade of beige. Aniston doesn't have to stretch a muscle as Sue, a traveling corporate-art salesperson staying in an Arizona motel, where she's courted late at night by the owners' man-child son, Mike (Steve Zahn). Awkwardly bringing her champagne and complimenting her ass, he nearly blows a fuse when she actually allows him to cop a feel. The next morning, en route to the airport, she inexplicably circles back and bangs Mike, and since they still have nothing in common, he follows her all over the country like some retarded puppy. Tape playwright-turned-director Stephen Belber's debut is reminiscent of the gimmicky Audrey Tautou vehicle He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not—at least the first half, when the Amélie star pined romantically for a man who, as shown from his point of view later, thinks she's a mentally ill stalker. Sure, this is a comedy, but even beyond Woody Harrelson's broad turn as an ex-punk yogurt mogul, there's something about Belber's script that demands the romance be taken seriously—if that were possible, it would be more disturbing than sweet.