Premise: After a one-night stand, two relative strangers are trapped in the guy's apartment by a blizzard.
It's good to know that I won't fall hard for all RomCom premises. I have some kind of quality control. Two Night Stand has the feel of a movie that began with the title. It probably didn't actually. I assume some marketing guy very proudly came up with "Two Night Stand" after it was bought at the Tribeca film festival with the title "The Long Weekend" or "Snowed In"*. But it plays like the title came first. Two attractive people have a one-night stand and end up stuck together for a weekend. Kind of like the movie Weekend except not by choice.
*It turns out, none of that is true.
Miles Teller and Lio Tipton aren't my top choice as a RomCom pairing. I like Teller, but he generally needs a softening agent. He needs a Shailene Woodley or he needs to be put in a larger cast like That Awkward Moment. Lio Tipton, for all their charm, is not that scene partner. Lio has worked best in supporting roles. Pair the two together and you just have two people who don't look comfortable. Both characters kind of suck, and without other people to play off most of the time, I can't even get a "these two are great together because no one else will have them" vibe. And it's super hard to me to swallow the ending. Teller gets Tipton arrested and Tipton is supposed to come around on it that night and find him charming for it? This movie doesn't earn that kind of narrative leap.
There are little things I like about the movie. I appreciate it going for the R-rating with the swearing. I enjoy the news on in the background constantly being about the weatherman stressing how cataclysmic the blizzard is. And did I see this right? At the beginning, when Tipton accidentally sets off Teller's alarm and Teller gets up to see if there's an intruder, is that a souvenir sized bat? I think it was, and if so, nice touch. If not, then Teller is a larger human than I thought.
Two Night Stand is a perfectly harmless movie. There's nothing about it that was infuriating. It doesn't do anything unforgiveable. It's just not a great pairing for a premise that absolutely needs the leads to work. These two need a world of people to play off so I can level-set their personalities better.
Side Note: I've seen way more of Mile Teller's filmography than I realized. The only movies I haven't seen of his are Footloose, Bleed For This, and Thank You For Your Service. He isn't one of my favorites, but is that a small enough list for me to go for it to say that I'm caught up? Also, why hasn't he had a movie since 2017? That's a really long time for someone so young without a trophy shelf.
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
No comments:
Post a Comment