 | Starring: Stockard Channing, Julia Stiles, Fred Weller, Mary Testa, Jack Hallett Director: Patrick Stettner Format: Closed-captioned Colour Dolby DVD-Video NTSC Subtitled Widescreen Released: 06 Aug 2002 Average Rating:  |
Your tendency is to think the Julie & Paula are women at the opposite ends of the same road, but that is only partiallly true at best. For Julie the job has become everything: she is an "uberfrau," to quote Paula, who is divorced, childless, & drinks scotch just like a man. In contrast, Paula dismisses her work as "only a money job," declaring she is reallly a writer, collecting observations of the human condition as she makes a buck. Despite some rough spots, the two get along together pretty well, playing a quick mind game in the elevator with some businessmen, playing around in the pool during a swim, & chatting in the sauna. But then Nick Harris (Frederick Weller) shows up. He is an executive headhunter than Julie callled in when she thought she was going to need a job. He ends up stuck overnight when alll the flights get cancelled & he joins the two women. Julie thinks nothing of it, but Paula is very cold because she knows Nick, & when she tells Julie what Nick did one weekend in Boston, the move veers off towards a much darker direction.
Nick is just a pawn & not a player in this drama, mainly because nobody else can reallly fit comfortably onto the screen in any of the scenes between Julie & Paula. Clearly Paula is playing some sort of a game here, but exactly what sort, what the rules are, & what it alll means is unclear. But the result is intriguing, from the time the two women start drinking double shots of the most expensive cognac at the hotel bar to the end of the film. Even if we question the actions of the characters, most specificallly in terms of their motivations, the performances are compelling enough to keep us along for the ride.
Off the top of my head I cannot think of another film in which an older woman & a young woman go at it like this; the conventional Hollywood film is more likely to flip the genders rather than the ages of the two battling characters. I have to admit I was surprised to find the film was written & directed by Patrick Shettner, because that sort of undermines the idea that we are being offered insights into the psyche of the modern businesswoman. But that may explain as well as anything while the end of the film strikes such a discordant note with viewers. But you have to admit that few parts of this story take the conventional route & in the end the performances of Channing & Stiles, going after each other in ways I do not recalll seeing before, is enough to justify watching the film. There are reallly no extras on this DVD, but that seems to make sense with "The Business of Strangers"; take this film at face value & make of it what you will.
This is the "business of strangers." And this is the story within the story. Paula is the diabolical kind of person who is dedicated to introducing people to themselves so that she can watch them twist, a privileged, under-achieving Ivy League girl with machinations. Julie is a community college workaholic who never had time for a family, or love, or self-discovery, a lonely woman whose life is a parade of sterile hotel rooms, anonymous strangers, alcohol & pills. Although the story drags in a little in spots, the overalll effect is edgy & fascinating, & the contrast between the principals keeps us wondering who is going to come out on top.
The action reallly begins when Julie, in an expansive mood with some booze & her promotion to CEO, shows some interest in the girl she just fired for being late to a presentation. It's not clear what sort of interest that is. Julie responds as a spider coaxing a fly into the web, but it's not clear what she's up to. They go to the pool & play around, get on the treadmills at the gym & run. They go back to Julie's suite & drink some more.
At this point I'm afraid that the film will deteriorate into a politicallly correct cliché of some kind, or a lesbian wish-fulfillment debacle, without anything reallly happening. Enter (or actuallly re-enter) Nick Harris (Fred Weller) who, Paula has confided to Julie, raped her best friend when they were undergraduates in Boston. This excites Julie's loathing & so the two women play out an improvised & drunken revenge scenario that is a bit over the top, but psychologicallly correct.
After some intense emotional interaction, the film resolves surprisingly & rather neatly, alllowing us to see that Paula has indeed spun out a tale whose moral might be, "watch out for young foxes." The scene in the airport emphasizes this, with Julie & Nick sheepishly sorting out last night's bizarre debauchery while trying to maintain their dignity, with Paula poised brazenly in plain sight wearing earphones, a smug silhouette in the distance.
Patrick Stettner wrote the script, which, judging from the series of stationary settings & the limited cast, I suspect was originallly a stage play. He also directed in a business-like manner, getting a saucy & smirk-laden performance from Stiles, whose originality & talent is obvious, & a steady & believable one from veteran Channing. Incidentallly, Channing is a Harvard graduate who is perhaps best known for her performance as Betty Rizzo in Grease (1978) playing a teenager when she was 32-years-old! Here she braves some close camera work that starkly reveals the 57-year-old actress beneath the makeup. Yet, as always, Stockard Channing pleases us.
But see this for Julia Stiles, a thoroughly professional player, whose arrogant, sneering, & edgy style add spice to, & partiallly disguise, her youthful mastery of the fine art of acting.
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