Aniston of the week: The Switch

Posted on by harrietwarman

This is one of the few Aniston film’s this writer has watched more than once, probably due, not only to Jennifer’s charisma, but the presence of Jeff Goldblum and Juliette Lewis in the cast. A silly plot, conventionally structured, but clearly it’s got through to me somehow. 00031357

FILM: The Switch
DIRECTOR: Josh Gordan, Will Speck
YEAR: 2010
CHARACTER NAME & PROFESSION: Kassie Larson, TV Producer
PLOT SUMMARY: Kassie and Wally (Jason Bateman, later seen with Aniston in Horrible Bosses) are best friends who once dated. Kassie wants to have a baby, and being single, decides to use a sperm donor. At her artificial insemination party, Wally gets very drunk and destroys the sperm sample. He switches it for his own ‘sample’ and forgets about it due to his ridiculous hangover. Kassie moves away from NYC to raise her son. Seven years later, she moves back to the city and reconnects with Wally. He notices that he and Kassie’s son Sebastien (Thomas Robinson) share are lot of the same anxieties and idiosyncrasies. Figuring out he must be the father, Wally decides to pursue Kassie, for whom he has always had feelings.

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Aniston with Bateman as Wally

CHARACTER TRAITS: Strong willed, nurturing, witty, and ambitious.
NOTES ON PERFORMANCE: Aniston is mainly required to be charming here, and she demonstrates a convincing motherly chemistry with Robinson, as well as a sort of endearing, exasperation with Bateman’s Wally.

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When your best friend behaves like an idiot, you’re all like…

NOTES ON FILM: I like to imagine (as I have before) how different this Aniston film would be, if it were told from her character’s perspective. Single mother has her pregnancy hijacked by her ‘best friend’ and struggles to reconcile her feelings for him, while dating the man she thought was her son’s father. What about her insecurities, her dilemma of what to do for her son? Instead it’s essentially all about sperm, and a man’s ‘right’ to his child. Well, you could read it that way, annoyingly it’s also very enjoyable in parts and has the kind of happy ending that only works because the performances – Aniston, Bateman and Robinson – are so convincing.
CONCLUSION: A hugely watchable Aniston outing.

Aniston of the week: Management

Posted on by harrietwarman

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Aniston of the Week: Dream for an Insomniac

Posted on by harrietwarman

For the second edition of Aniston of the Week, we look back to the early days of Jennifer’s career – not the TV years when she appeared as Jeannie in the Ferris Bueller series – but those days after Friends started but before she became a regular in romantic comedies. Jennifer’s first movie was The Leprechaun (Mark Jones, 1993) but we’ll get to that later, instead we’ll explore a movie in which Jennifer plays the role of ‘the best friend’ – a role that would later be typical of actors such as Judy Greer to Aniston’s star turn.

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Aniston as Allison

FILM: Dream for an Insomniac
DIRECTOR: Tiffanie DeBartolo
YEAR: 1996
CHARACTER NAME AND PROFESSION: Allison, aspiring actor.
PLOT SUMMARY: Set in San Francisco, Frankie (Ione Skye) is an orphaned, insomniac, romantic idealist who lives above her uncle Leo’s (Seymour Cassel) café – Café Blue Eyes, where she works occasionally with her cousin Rob (Michael Landes). She and her best friend Allison (Aniston) are due to depart for LA in three days so they can pursue their acting ambitions. Cynical Frankie doesn’t think her ideal man exists because her mother told her not to settle for anything less than the blue eyes (hence the café name) of Frank Sinatra. Lo and behold, in walks David (Mackenzie Astin) one day, a blue-eyed writer looking for a job. Frankie falls for him, but surprise! He has a girlfriend.
CHARACTER TRAITS: Ambitious, nurturing, witty, generous – your basic Best. Friend. Ever.

Aniston as Allison, giving advice like a best friend should.
Aniston as Allison, giving advice like a best friend should.

NOTES ON PERFORMANCE: Aniston had been playing Rachel Green in Friends for two years at this point, and it’s apparent that Allison owes a lot to the Rachel persona, as some of the same mannerisms – hand gestures, expressions etc. – are present, alongside of course THE HAIR. Nevertheless, Aniston basically underplays the role, letting Skye remain the heart of the film. She also gamely adds in this habit of Allison’s to try out different accents in almost every scene (she’s French when introduced) because, y’know, she’s an actor! Her southern drawl is probably the most convincing, but watch out for a scene toward the end in which she’s supposed to be Indian (I think), which is, as you can imagine, just plain wrong.

l-r Sean Blackman, Jennifer Aniston, Ione Skye, Mackenzie Astin
l-r Sean Blackman, Jennifer Aniston, Ione Skye, Mackenzie Astin

NOTES ON FILM: Dream for an Insomniac is shot in black and white for the film’s first 20 minutes and bursts into colour the the moment blue-eyed David shows up, which is but one of the many ways the film references classic Hollywood, and of course Sinatra et al. Pop-cultural references abound elsewhere too, with one scene in which the characters discuss the ‘God’ status of Bono versus Michael Stipe. Like Reality Bites (Ben Stiller, 1994) and Singles (Cameron Crowe, 1992), it’s your essential Gen-X set-up, but unlike those films, Dream for an Insomniac doesn’t convince in its characterisation or setting.

CONCLUSION: Aniston provides effortless charm in a film that tries too hard to be charming.