Sunday, March 1, 2015

[FILM] "Two Night Stand" Review - Innocuous Romantic Boringness

One of the many downsides of my previous romantic affair was that not only I had very little time for personal activities, such as film and film critique, but my ex had a weird fixation with horror movies. They didn't have to be good, they just had to pretend they were scary (or to have songs in them). It did get me to see the new Evil Dead, which I very much liked, the Conjuring, which is one of the better horror films of the decade so far and a few more indie productions I'd have otherwise missed, but I practically didn't follow any other genre since 2012 (I only put my foot down for Man of Steel-- obviously).

I only saw the first Avengers last week; this week I wanted something lighter. Perhaps a comedy or, failing that, at least a low-key romantic 'dramedy' that would get me a quiet, pleasant Saturday evening.

I chose Two Night Stand, because I remembered a trailer Youtube shoved in my face a couple of months back. It didn't look great, but it did look "easy" and easily digestible; exactly what I needed.


Two Night Stand is a low budget romantic comedy written by Mark Hammer and directed by Max Nichols. In the film, pre-Med graduate Megan (Analeigh Tipton) finds herself in a bit of a quarterly-life crisis, when her engagement abruptly ends and turns all her future plans upside down. Unable to decide what she wants to do with her life, romantically, professionally or otherwise, she's heavily encouraged by her roommate Faiza (Jessica Szohr) to at least try and break her routine and live a little.

At least that's the general idea, I imagine. Apparently, the first step for Megan to get her life back together is to have a one-night stand. I'm not getting judgy or anything, I'm just questioning priorities. But okay; it's a step, one step, any step for the protagonist to not spend one more day in her pyjamas in front of the TV doing nothing, so it's just plausible enough to work.

She slaps together a profile in an online dating site and after a real-life encounter with her ex-fiancé and his date (because of course), she texts some random dude in the site for a booty call. The date is set and a few hours later, she wakes up in his bed.

All is well and good at first; said dude is a fairly ordinary guy (who apparently consistently dates out of his league) named Alec (Miles Teller). The massive (and, honestly, somewhat forced) awkwardness in the morning causes some friction between the two, but for all intends and purposes they will never see each other again, so it doesn't matter. At least it wouldn't matter, if a blizzard hadn't been dropping by New York for tea and biscuits (or coffee and bagels), effectively barring Megan from leaving and forcing the two to spend another day (and night) together.



The promotional material (by that I mean that one trailer I had seen) had framed the film as young people have sex, get stuck together and talk to each other about sex and how to improve their performance. I actually timed how long it took the film to get to that discussion: 42 minutes, in a 90-minute flick (credits included). How long did that conversation take? Roughly 5-7 minutes.

This bothers me; the film tried selling itself as a young comedy about sex, when in reality it's a hell of a lot more conventional than that. I quite like romantic comedies, when they aren't too obvious or too ridiculous, but the genre's insistence on sanitizing sex as if it's something mystical, this pathologically virginal approach to eroticism that's permeating the genre turns my stomach inside-out. Romantic comedies are, usually, about young love-- meaning both love between young people and relationships still at their start. I would hope that lest you're following one of the "Good" books out there and "saving yourself" there would be a lot of fucking involved.

It bothers me specifically in a film like this, because it's literally about casual sex. It's about a one-night-stand. It's about two young people fucking, because humans like fucking. On that note, go see Love and Other Drugs.

But okay; the two young protagonists are actually fairly likeable and the script at least takes some time to give even a passing look to their personalities, so the gradual bonding (mostly) works. They have breakfast, they are awkward, they get high, they get less awkward, they break into someone's apartment and eventually they get to that conversation. To the film's credit, that talk isn't ridiculous; it's funny enough without going to extremes, it's silly but doesn't go overboard with the subject matter and for the most part touches on small things that aren't too far removed from reality (though one point raised regarding stripping completely went over my head-- I guess I'm not the voyeuristic type?) After they are done, they decide to put each other's advice to the test and go for another round.

This leads to the usual, neutered sex scene typically found in this genre; some PG-13 skin doesn't begin to make this resemble people (and likely their body doubles) fucking.

It obviously goes better and they grow closer because orgasms are awesome and all and then something happens. Of course something happens; and they obviously split up. What follows is the big romantic gesture that gets them back together; OF COURSE there is a big romantic gesture!

This is the point where the film jumps the shark. Listen, Hollywood, I realize this is par for the course for this type of movie, but you can try challenging the status quo every now and then; without spoiling it, the 'big romantic gesture' here involves the police!

I'm sorry, but no regular, happy romantic story in this world starts by involving cops and jail-time.

Why does there always have to be a misunderstanding and a big romantic gesture? I realize a 30-year-old dude like me isn't the target demographic for "romantic comedies", but are you really telling me that the targeted female audience wants that time and again? Even if they do, even if that one romantic gesture at the end is something that works, because it's out of the ordinary and it's some random prince trying to win a princess that the audience projects themselves into; I understand a boombox with '80s music, I understand a marriage proposal via hot-air balloon and whatnot, but the police? Jail? It's not cute; it's out of place.

Why in this film, of all films? Here is what I don't understand: this does not share the same audience as most romantic comedies. This is specifically for young people, people even before their early-to-mid 20s, people who are in fact supposed to be having as much sex as they want. This could potentially be something that connects with that audience, it could be material that young adults find genuinely relevant to their lives (and it's probably why it was marketed as such); instead, it quickly devolves into the same vanilla, rainbows and puppies and candy bullshit, this innate My Little Pony childishness, where the hardships, the eroticism and messiness of relationships just don't exist. Even the thing that happens and briefly breaks the couple apart the film does its best to sanitize, to make sure that nobody is really the 'bad guy'; in doing so, it makes the drama even more arbitrary and the situation even more unrealistic.

The movie itself can't even begin to sell its protagonists like some prince and princess couple that will end up together amidst this great love. It's clear that there is nothing special about them or the fondness that develops between one-another. They just had sex, it was fun, they liked each other enough to start dating. That's all. There was no need for arbitrary conflict, no need for great romantic gestures; the film could've made its point if it had ended on an entirely different note, if they two had split up merely keeping this experience in their minds for the rest of their lives. They're both 25 years old at the most and still have a lot of things to figure out about their own lives beyond the romantic. This didn't -and couldn't- end in a marriage proposal. For all intends and purposes, this relationship won't last for more than a month-- and you know what? That's okay. It happens. It's not a huge loss.

The reason every goddamned romantic comedy needs to end with the vague promise of eternal love and bonding and fidelity is because the entire genre feeds off fear and uncertainty and hope of fairytale relationships that don't exist-- and thank the heavens they don't, because they would be horrifically boring. Seriously, you want to introduce cheating and hatred into a relationship? Make it a fairytale affair.

The point is, you can't have a film about a one-night-stand and then try and feed off the same fear every other such flick feeds off of. A one-night-stand is not a big deal. It's sex. It's not bonding, it's not a promise, it's not an investment; it's a transaction that involves a condom. This particular transaction didn't even involve drinks or flirting or courtship; it was 100% a fair business deal.

'Dissonance' is a term creators should start paying more attention to, as well. A low-key comedy about a young couple in the making should progress and end accordingly. You can't jump from PG-13 discussions about sex to someone ending up in jail. It's all about the framework you've set up. A film like 2004's The Girl Next Door, one of my guilty pleasures, has its high school senior protagonist go through all sorts of craziness to win the girl he likes; the difference is that from the get-go, the framework of the film is "boy meets girl, girl is a pornstar, boy is screwed". Said craziness is the point of the film. Two Night Stand is innocuous and once craziness is introduced in it, it just becomes ridiculous.

The tragedy is that I was enjoying the movie up to that point; it wasn't great (barely competent, in fact), but it was simple, pleasant, the cast was likeable (even good, given the material) it was just enjoyable enough for a very quiet evening. I like romantic comedies, because occasionally I tend to fall in love myself. I didn't need this to be raunchy, but I question its intentions, because it seems like it started from a completely different point, before the studio came down on it and demanded it became a cliché of nothingness; and oh how many clichés exist in this flick! The movie even offers -and I shit you not- a funny black friend! At least he's not a sidekick, but still.

The question remains: would I recommend it? Surprisingly, no; it's rare for me not to recommend a film. I review pretty much everything weeks or months or even years after release, so a full price of admission is rarely on the table to begin with. With video-games it's different: a five-year-old game requires time and its actual price is still nothing to scoff at. For films, unless they are truly terrible or actually vile, when it's not in the theatre, the price of admission (i.e. a rental) is way too low to ever make a film not worth seeing. Even if it's an average film, even if it's relatively bad, it's usually not much of a sacrifice for almost everyone with the luxury to watch movies.

Two Night Stand doesn't get a pass, because its price of admission is too high: it's 90 minutes you're not getting back. It's not completely boring, but it's not interesting either. There is potential, but it's never realized. If it was the film that was marketed, things would be different, but as it stands now there is nothing here you haven't seen before and you won't see again. It's mostly a cute flick, but just not enough to spend one and a half hours of your life for, when you are bound to forget it the moment the end-credits start rolling. 

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