The Business of Strangers (2001)
Directed by Patrick Stettner
Written by Patrick Stettner
Starring Stockard Channing, Julia Stiles, Fred Weller
Release Date December 7th, 2001
Published January 14th, 2002
I recently wrote of how there are so few good roles for women in Hollywood films. In the indie film The Business of Strangers, there are two excellent female characters. Two fantastic actresses brilliantly bring both to life and both are botched by a first time writer-director who really didn't know what he had.
The film stars Stockard Channing as Julie, vice president of a software company from which she may or may not be getting fired. As she is to make a presentation to potential clients, Julie's temporary assistant shows up late and the deal is blown. The temp is a 24-year old Dartmouth grad named Paula (Julia Stiles) who doesn't seem all that fazed by her screw up, that is until Julie fires her on the spot. Thus beginning an unusual confrontation between two strong willed people.
Julie, now even more concerned with losing her job, has dinner with a corporate job hunter named Nick (Fred Weller). Julie soon finds her job is more than safe and has no need for Nick. Circumstances bring the three characters back together in Julie's massive hotel suite with the women playing Nick and each other, testing limits of psychology and sexuality.
The film has the feel and tone of Richard Linklater's superior indie Tape, though this film is from the female perspective. A good idea but one that writer-director Patrick Stettner abandons in favor of a confusing and somewhat convoluted revenge plot. The Nick character is never allowed to develop and half way through the film you're left wondering why we are being treated to flashes of him waiting for a plane that never comes. The character exists solely to fill in as a plot focal point after Stettner ran out of barbed dialogue for his two leads.
The two leads, Channing and Stiles, are spectacular. They have excellent chemistry and if The Business Of Strangers had been allowed to focus on just the two of them then it might have been a more interesting story, albeit one better suited to the stage than the screen.
I'll say this for Stettner, his first full-length script is an ambitious one, filled with psychosexual head games on par with Neil Labute. What Stettner lacks is an interesting narrative, a story that lets the audience in on the characters motivations. You don't have to lead the audience like a dog on a leash, but the characters need to have some reason to be doing what it is they are doing. Channing and Stiles rock, but the story does their performances a disservice and keeps the film as a whole from meeting its potential.
