Sunday 18 January 2015

Film Review: Two Night Stand



This is not the Miles Teller film you're looking for, but maybe it should be. 

Ok, confession time - I took to iTunes to hunt down the digital release of Whiplash. Turns out, I have to wait until February for that particular one so instead I watched Two Night Stand, another film that stars Miles Teller. It's a rom-com though. So I was doubtful from the outset.

Anyway, let's dive right in. What's the deal with Two Night Stand?

So Two Night Stand is about Megan (Analeigh Tipton), a lonely unemployed 20-something who is down on her luck. She finds Alec (Miles Teller) on a dating site and the two hook-up for some casual sex. However, the duo find themselves snowed in the next morning and are forced to overcome the post-sex awkwardness by actually getting to know one another.

Analeigh Tipton is an interesting lead - she's cute in a really relatable and everyday kinda way. Very conventional girl-next-door kind of thing - she hangs around drinking wine in sweatpants and tries to be flirty online with guys. A quick glance at IMDB reveals she cropped up in Lucy last year but here she's front and centre, and doesn't do a bad job to be honest.

Miles Teller plays a similar kind of role to the one he played in The Spectacular Now, but with much less depth and a lot more snark. Again, he's very charismatic and charming, even if you want to punch his smug little face at times. I'm sure Miles Teller is a lovely bloke in real-life, I'm just saying that little half-smile he does when he's trying to be smart is annoying as hell.

I feel like I'm getting a little sidetracked here...

Anyway, the lead duo have some great chemistry together, and it's this spark between their characters that illuminates an otherwise conventional plot. You don't have to be an English major to figure out how things will play out across the brisk 86-minute runtime. It gets to the point pretty quickly and zips through all sorts of fun shenanigans like getting high, building a blanket fort and talking about orgasms.

It's almost like an extended 'bottle episode' where the characters are actually forced to interact within a confined space. The script doesn't delve deep into Megan and Alec but there is enough to get you interested, especially with the former. The middle-act sees the couple explore the ins and outs of sex and kind of comes across like a Cosmo quiz. You know, the really generic things that people think sex boils down to and read about in every glossy mag ever. Again, it's cute and fun but also skin-deep.

I liked that film went that route though - some of the dialogue and things the two talk about when they're going over how each other was the night before was really funny. The soundtrack is also kinda cool with The Drums, Dramarama and a whole collection of other indie groups popping up. It's a rom-com, so that kinda thing comes as standard.

One last niggle is that the plot loses steam a little in the last 10-15 minutes. It doesn't have the usual rousing crescendo like other rom-coms where they kiss in the rain/snow/hail and the ending they do find just didn't do it for me.

The end result is a film that is suited to like-minded millennials who want to throw on something sexy and cute (maybe with their other half). It's kinda self-referential but not in an overbearing kinda way - in fact, I was surprised just how much I did like it.

The Verdict: 6/10


Two Night Stand didn't suck as much as I thought it was going to. Tipton and Teller are a very likeable couple, even if the commentary they provide on sex and relationships is torn straight from every issue of Cosmopolitan. A fun romp angled at hip young things.

4 comments:

  1. It was, to me, also surprisingly less sucky than I predicted. :D

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  2. I just really need Miles Teller to be a BIG star, since he has so much more talent than most in his 'group'.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, I think we're starting to see that come to the surface now with Whiplash and so on - I hope he doesn't get too stuck in the whole Divergent area though :/

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