Director: Massy Tadjedin
Screenplay: Massy Tadjedin
Producers: Christophe Riandee, Massy Tadjedin, Nick Wechsler
Starring: Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, Eva Mendes, Guillaume Canet
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 90 min.

(3/5)

What’s worse: cheating on your spouse by having meaningless hot sex with a near stranger or sharing an intimate, sex-free, night with a person you’re still in love with? That’s the question posed by Massy Tadjedin in her debut Last Night but there’s more at play than the obvious. Tadjedin is also exploring the realities of relationships, the things we tell each other and those that we choose to keep to ourselves and essentially, is there such a thing as too much honesty?

Happily married for a few years, Joanna (Keira Knightley) and Michael (Sam Worthington) are comfortable in their relationship. At a party, Joanna sees Michael having what appears to be an intimate conversation with Laura (Eva Mendes) a co-worker he has been spending a lot of time with. At home that evening the two argue about it before Joanna concedes that she was over reacting, reading into an attraction Michael swears isn’t there and the next morning, Michael goes on a business trip with the sexy Laura. While he’s away, Joanna bumps into Alex (Guillaume Canet), a man we later find out was the object of her attention while she and Michael were taking some time apart before getting back together and eventually getting married.

The night unfolds in snippets as Michael and Laura have drinks and a dip in the pool that leads to passionate sex while Joanna has dinner with Alex and the two reminisce about their time together and skirt around the love they still have for each other though both are in relationships with others.

I love this concept, the look at the relationship of an apparently happy couple and the exploration of truth, honesty and love but I found Tadjedin’s direction and the film’s editing taking away from the overall story. The constant reminders that Joanna and Michael are together are unnecessary and though I can appreciate that the film unfolds by delivering snippets of how both Michael and Joanna’s night is unfolding so, I assume, we can see and feel how both are being dishonest, I found the editing distracting. The snapping away from a couple just as they’re touching on something intimate is ineffective and by the time we cut back to the moment or the one that follows, the magic is lost and with each edit, I found myself drifting further from the characters.

Joanna and Alex’s story doesn’t suffer as badly, likely because the chemistry between Knightley and Canet is much more natural and their eyes and body language speak even when they don’t. The distance between Worthington and Mendes fits their character arcs and the “purely physical” attraction Tadjedin pushes but it also feels contradictory; why would they bother with talking about their relationships if sex is the only thing on their minds?

I like the complicated story Tadjedin is telling fascinating but Last Night doesn’t work. I found myself wanting to see more of Knightley and Canet’s relationship while almost immediately losing interest in that of Mendes and Worthington and though dropping it would have completely changed the story, it would have made for a more interesting film. I wouldn’t be adverse to seeing where things lead in a few years time; will Joanna and Michael share their one night secrets and how will that affect their relationship? – but I’m not convinced Tadjedin is the best person to tell that story.

There are some beautiful moments in Last Night, most of them between Knightley and Canet though Worthington’s performance is suggestive of the depth that I remember from some of his earlier work, but I didn’t love the film. Director Massy Tadjedin shows promise as a director with an interesting perspective on relationships and I enjoyed seeing Knightley and Canet together, a pairing I’d love to see in a better film, but overall, Before Sunset and Closer are better examinations of similar subject matter.

Last Night is available on DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, August 2nd.

DVD Extras: A 20 minute collection of cast and director interviews. Sadly, I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the subtitles for the interviews as Canet’s is in French.