Uneven but engaging romantic comedy Two Night Stand stars Miles Teller and Analeigh Tipton as a couple of randy young New Yorkers, Alec and Megan, who meet online on a dating site over the Christmas holidays and set up what they intend to be a one-night stand.
But their supposedly fleeting liaison with no-strings-attached turns out rather differently when a blizzard hits the city overnight, trapping them in Alec’s tiny Brooklyn apartment. With the snow banked up on the streets outside, the mood inside the flat quickly turns frosty, too, as insults and put-downs are traded with abandon.
Amid the sniping, however, we begin to understand why Alec and Megan – both bruised by previous relationships – should have been seeking a one-night stand in the first place. And, given that this is a rom-com, we have a pretty good idea that their mutual hostility will have transformed into more tender feelings before the credits roll.
The movie marks the directorial debut of Max Nichols, son of the late Mike Nichols, who began his own filmmaking career exploring even messier romantic entanglements in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) and The Graduate (1967).
Two Night Stand can’t stand comparison with those Oscar-winning movies, but it does provide modest pleasures of its own. Teller and Tipton make an appealingly awkward duo and their chemistry compensates for the film’s contrived setup. Teller, so good as the aspiring jazz drummer in Whiplash, lets us see the vulnerability beneath Alec’s glibness, while Tipton, who first made a splash as a contestant on America’s Next Top Model, has goofy charm to spare.
Certificate 15. Runtime 84 mins. Director Max Nichols
Two Night Stand is available on DVD from Signature Entertainment and debuts today on Sky Movies Premiere.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcSosCe0B-A
