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"TWO NIGHT STAND"
(2014) (Analeigh Tipton, Miles Teller) (R)


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QUICK TAKE:
Romantic Comedy: The participants in a one-night stand end up stuck together when a blizzard traps them in his place.
PLOT:
Unlike her roommate, Faiza (JESSICA SZOHR), who has a job, and a boyfriend in Cedric (SCOTT MESCUDI), Megan (ANALEIGH TIPTON) is unemployed and single. A one-time pre-med student, she's now lost and lonely enough that she decides to try online dating. With the encouragement of Faiza, she decides to have a one-night stand and ends up choosing Alec (MILES TELLER), an assistant bank manager who lives across New York City.

She ends up traveling to his place, they have sex, and the next morning she tries to sneak out, but his alarm system has her race back to bed. After that, their previous passion turns to sarcastic spite and she attempts to leave again. This time, however, she's stopped from doing so by a historic blizzard that's literally trapped her inside his place. From that point on, they must contend with being stuck together, all while sorting out how they feel and discussing the differences in how men and women view sex.

OUR TAKE: 4 out of 10
Back before sex came along and hijacked it, "one night stand" used to be a theater and venue performance phrase, all related to -- you guessed it -- a one-time appearance or show. Nowadays, of course, if some theater marquee advertised a one-night stand, the vast majority of those passing by would think such a performance had something to do with a "hook up," "booty call" or countless other slang terms for casual sex.

And those same people would likely have different views of heterosexual participants in such acts. While some women might view the man as a cad or womanizer, the vast majority of men would see him as some lucky dude. On the flip side, most men and women would view the female participant as "loose," a "slut" or other such double-standard, derogatory terms.

A little of that dichotomy is explored in "Two Night Stand," a romantic comedy that contains the intriguing premise of what if two such casual sex partners ended up stuck together the next day and had to do something beyond the act and the preliminary flirting leading up to it.

As directed by Max Nichols (son of Mike "The Graduate" Nichols) from a script by Mark Hammer, the film stars figure skater turned actress Analeigh Tipton and Miles Teller ("Divergent," "The Spectacular Now") as two such souls who literally get trapped in his place when a historic blizzard strikes during the night after their rendezvous. She'd like to leave but can't, and it doesn't take long before the two have turned antagonistic.

Some brief bong action settles that and they end up talking about each other, but mostly about sexual matters, including their various gender-based pet peeves about how the other sex behaves in the sack. Despite the aforementioned double standard issue, and that most viewers of such a film like this might bring their own related viewpoints to the table, the pic doesn't do much of anything interesting, educational or entertaining with the material.

In fact, and despite the pic's fairly truncated run-time (around 86 minutes with credits), many a viewer might eventually end up feeling like they're similarly blizzard stuck with these two and the film they're in, and desperately want to get out. Had the filmmakers done anything unique with the premise and related material, one's reaction might have been different.

But this is really just a standard, R-rated rom-com in cinematic sheep's clothing that follows the usual trajectory of the genre. If that's not clear, see if this sounds familiar. We have the characters initially not liking each other (at least after the casual sex encounter), then slowly falling for one another, followed by something breaking them up, only to have them reconcile at the end.

Yes, there are roughly a gazillion such pics that follow that very mold and game plan. Yet, if nothing special is done with the material, it just doesn't go anywhere anymore. While there are a few cute lines here and there (at one point Megan laments that she's going backwards in life and thus is "Benjamin Buttoning"), and both of the leads do exhibit moments of self-deprecating charm, all of their efforts ends up feeling like, well, a fairly meaningless encounter. "Two Night Stand" rates as a 4 out of 10.




Reviewed September 22, 2014 / Posted September 26, 2014


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