Aniston of the week began ten films ago with Tiffanie DeBartolo’s 1996 comedy Dream for An Insomniac. So, what have we learned?
According to the Aniston Role Matrix (which I just mocked up today), we’ve seen performances over three decades: five of Aniston’s nineties and early noughties Friends era movies, two in the late noughties and three from this decade. Aniston has played two health care professionals, and two creative characters. Most frequently I’ve used the word ‘kind’ to describe her characters, but also ‘low self-esteem’ and ‘assertive.’
The kind roles tend towards the Rachel times, whilst recently, Aniston has played more prickly or unethical characters. In interviews, particularly for Horrible Bosses, Aniston has spoken about how she is rarely considered for such roles, so having the opportunity is both a challenge and a great deal of fun.
We’ve seen Aniston in only two films directed by women. Five of her roles have been in romantic comedies, six have paired her with a male lead, two have been ensemble comedies and in one, she’s the supporting player. It’s perhaps too early to make a full assessment, but a good time to get an insight into Aniston’s attitude and approach to acting. Here’s her appearance on Inside the Actors Studio, in which she mainly gives short answers and uses comedy to deflect any deeper probing. Rather than an evasion tactic, it perhaps shows her as she describes herself, ‘silly’ and ‘goofy’ and ‘not taking myself too seriously.’
This week, we approached another miss-matched couple with trepidation, but we were delighted to see Aniston playing football! Not only that, producing and starring in a flawed but endearing film.
Aniston feels our trepidation
FILM: Management
YEAR: 2008
DIRECTOR: Stephen Belber
CHARACTER NAME AND PROFESSION: Sue, commercial art dealer
PLOT SUMMARY: On a work trip to present to potential clients, Sue stays at a motel owned by Trish (Margo Martindale) and Jerry (Fred Ward). Their grown son, Mike (Steve Zahn, The Object of my Affection) also works at the motel. Mike is a socially awkward guy with little experience with women. He decides that Sue is the perfect woman for him based purely on ogling her when she checks in. The plot essentially involves Mike ingratiating himself into Sue’s life, despite her protests, following her across the country, uninvited. Somehow, perhaps out of sympathy, Sue finds Mike somewhat attractive and though she make clear he has violated boundaries, something compels her not to turn him away. Eventually, their lives take different paths, but Mike remains persistent. They both challenge each other to live with more care for themselves. Also Woody Harrelson plays Sue’s lover, an ex-punk called Jango.
Aniston with Steve Zahn as Mike
CHARACTER TRAITS: Generous, charitable, kind, confident, self-posessed (to a point), assertive. Claims not to be a ‘people person’.
NOTES ON PERFORMANCE: The plot of Management is so creepy on paper – socially awkward man stalks woman persistently, demanding affection like a puppy – that initially it’s hard to see how the filmmakers are going to pull this off. That the film is watchable, thoughtful and occasionally funny, is due to Aniston’s well observed and hugely affecting performance. She presents Sue as someone at once at ease with, and slightly outside of her experience of the world. That she makes believable Sue’s resistance and curiosity about Mike is a great accomplishment. One scene in particular really showcases, with tremendous subtlety, how connected Aniston is to her character: after Mike travels to her hometown, Maryland, on a one-way ticket, Sue reluctantly spends time with him but naturally sends him home on the bus. When they part, Mike leans in to kiss Sue’s cheek, and in this moment, Aniston’s micro expressions convey the full range of Sue’s feelings – concern, affection, anxiety, sadness – which demonstrate her internal world and some of the reasons why she’s tolerating Mike. The moment is crucial in persuading the audience to believe in this ‘odd couple’ and Aniston nails it.
Nothing like receiving a massage whilst the two of you listen to music via headphones (?!)
NOTES ON FILM: Writer/Director Stephen Belber is also a successful playwright, and is notable for writing both the stage and screenplay for Richard Linklater’s Tape (2001), a work that relies on each character’s changing perception of the other as slowly, truth is revealed. With Management, though the plot really, really pushes credibility (the skydiving?! Mike becomes a monk?!), it’s again the characters changing perception of each other that carries the film. Despite all its flaws, Belber’s (mainly) emotionally intelligent screenplay and the sheer force of Aniston and Zahn’s performances, make the relationship here, somehow believable.
CONCLUSION: Aniston produced this also, and her belief in the film is obvious. She’s triumphant.
Still wading through those rom-coms, this week we take a look at Aniston’s pairing with ‘everyman’ Ben Stiller.
FILM: Along Came Polly
DIRECTOR: John Hamburg
YEAR: 2004
CHARACTER NAME AND PROFESSION: Polly Prince, waitress and aspiring illustrator
PLOT SUMMARY: A man name Reuben Feffer (Ben Stiller) who is a risk-assessment analyst (non-spoiler – his job matches exactly his personality) gets married, but his wife Lisa (Debra Messing) sleeps with a scuba instructor on the first day of their honeymoon. Reuben is sad, he goes back to work, everyone knows what happened to him. His best friend Sandy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) invites him to an art show to cheer him up and he meets Polly (Aniston!) who went to the same middle-school as him. He’s surprised to find that Polly, a former Valedictorian and leader of the model UN, is now a tattooed waitress (shocker!), who owns a pet ferret, as though he lives in a world where people always fulfil childhood expectations. When Polly finds out what happened to Reuben, she feels sorry for him and they begin dating, despite being initially repulsed by him and having nothing in common.
Aniston, here capturing exactly my expression as I watched this film.
CHARACTER TRAITS: Intelligent, funny, spontaneous, open, honest, kind, self-aware.
NOTES ON PERFORMANCE: Aniston should be commended for simply acting alongside Stiller here, even though they have zero chemistry, she still convinces as Polly, with some of her most authentic scenes being those opposite Missi Pyle as her friend/colleague Roxanne. You can tell Aniston is trying here, and it’s not her fault that the writer/director has created such an unconvincing narrative.
With Ben Stiller as Reuben
NOTES ON FILM: The lack of chemistry between Stiller and Aniston totally ruins the film, as does the lengths the films goes to prove they’re sooooo different, which then works against credibility when they end up together at the end. Not even Aniston could convince me that Polly really wants to be with Reuben. Again, a film in which the female character is actually more interesting than the male protagonist and I’d prefer to watch a film from her perspective. Imagine – she’s minding her own business and this trainwreck of a guy lands in her life and tries to convince her they’re somehow compatible – that’d be hilarious because she’d just go off to Tanzania in the end and have a blast.
CONCLUSION: I felt like Rodolfo the ferret while watching this film – banging my head against a wall.
cinematicinvestigations.com 