Last Night (2010)
You might think a movie about a couple on the verge of having affairs on the side would be good stuff just because it's so much part of life for so many of us. And this starts with the promise that our leading man and woman, Sam Worthington and Keira Knightley, will have enough nuance, guts, anger, complication, and acting prowess to make it even a little bit special.
Not quite. Knightley, away from her more usual period sets ("Atonement" and Jane Austen movies come to mind), is a really likable and ordinary girl, really. And she does have presence on the screen, lighting up and having some nuance to her expressions. She holds up her end of this set-up pretty well. Worthington, less so, for sure, though you might argue that this is supposed to be a really everyday couple, regular folk like you and me. Still, he has to make it worthwhile (or else we'll just talk to our cheating friends for entertainment).
And then there are the other halves of the potential affairs--the woman Worthington's character mostly wants but wants to resist, and the man the Knightley has previously been involved with and who she finds still provocative. But both of these secondary characters are drawn superficially and acted either without fire (Eva Mendes) or with drippy emptiness (Guillaume Canet).
Most of all, with all this cast and with expensive filming (the production values are good, the photography quietly expert--watch the careful focus at times), the story is just too simple. All we have, without giving away a thing, are these two parallel worlds, the man who may or may not sleep with this woman (who does want him to), and the woman who may or may not, etc. etc.
In fact, the main couple has a chance to really deal with their temptations, and either lying or confessing, and with maybe finding similarities in having temptation not only at their fingertips but clawing at them without respect or regard. But no, just as something might come around, there is silence. And the end of the movie. I think it's supposed to be striking and profound--that life just keeps going and we all have our inner secrets--but what's so interesting or new about that? I was much more taken with Clive Owen blowing up and really talking and thinking out loud when he found his wife, Julia Roberts, had cheated on him in "Closer."
A deflating experience after a promising start.
You might think a movie about a couple on the verge of having affairs on the side would be good stuff just because it's so much part of life for so many of us. And this starts with the promise that our leading man and woman, Sam Worthington and Keira Knightley, will have enough nuance, guts, anger, complication, and acting prowess to make it even a little bit special.
Not quite. Knightley, away from her more usual period sets ("Atonement" and Jane Austen movies come to mind), is a really likable and ordinary girl, really. And she does have presence on the screen, lighting up and having some nuance to her expressions. She holds up her end of this set-up pretty well. Worthington, less so, for sure, though you might argue that this is supposed to be a really everyday couple, regular folk like you and me. Still, he has to make it worthwhile (or else we'll just talk to our cheating friends for entertainment).
And then there are the other halves of the potential affairs--the woman Worthington's character mostly wants but wants to resist, and the man the Knightley has previously been involved with and who she finds still provocative. But both of these secondary characters are drawn superficially and acted either without fire (Eva Mendes) or with drippy emptiness (Guillaume Canet).
Most of all, with all this cast and with expensive filming (the production values are good, the photography quietly expert--watch the careful focus at times), the story is just too simple. All we have, without giving away a thing, are these two parallel worlds, the man who may or may not sleep with this woman (who does want him to), and the woman who may or may not, etc. etc.
In fact, the main couple has a chance to really deal with their temptations, and either lying or confessing, and with maybe finding similarities in having temptation not only at their fingertips but clawing at them without respect or regard. But no, just as something might come around, there is silence. And the end of the movie. I think it's supposed to be striking and profound--that life just keeps going and we all have our inner secrets--but what's so interesting or new about that? I was much more taken with Clive Owen blowing up and really talking and thinking out loud when he found his wife, Julia Roberts, had cheated on him in "Closer."
A deflating experience after a promising start.