Friday, January 8, 2010

Movie | Management | Pass

A nice little romantic comedy about two mildly emotionally stunted people, played by Jennifer Aniston and the perfectly zany Steve Zahn. Zahn really pulls the movie through, Aniston is quite good in her role and there is a superb supporting cast including Fred Ward (Remo Williams!), Margo Martindale (whose role in an episode of Hung really made us fans of hers), Woody Harrelson (as an ex-punk rocker who now owns a yogurt company?!?...odd casting, but he's still good in this) and a guy named James Hiroyuki Liao. Liao has been in a bunch of TV shows that we haven't watched, so we didn't recognize him. But, in this film, he is absolutely superb as the nutty sidekick/best friend. That role is such a leaping off point for so many actors, it seems (Rhys Ifans in Notting Hill instantly comes to mind). It would be nice to see Liao in more things. He's got great potential.

There is a nice sense of the journey that the characters pursue and endure in this movie.

Occasionally, the language can be a bit jarringly harsh. I don't think it really added much and it would have been more impressive if they'd just left it out. What was nice, though, was the lack of gross-out moments and cheap jokes. Instead, they concentrated on building interesting, growing characters with subtle humor.

Better than expected and nicely quirky.

1 comment:

  1. I agree with this review. This is a root for the underdog kind of movie that gets you right from the beginning.

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