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ONE NIGHT STAND

Rebecca Wan

Written and Directed by: Mike Figgis (Joe Eszterhas, original screenplay)

Cast: Wesley Snipes (Max), Nastassja Kinski(Karen), Ming-Na Wen (Mimi), Kyle MacLachlan (Vernon), Robert Downey, Jr. (Charlie)

Music scored by: Mike Figgis

Produced by: Red Mullet Productions / New Line Cinema

Running Time: 103 min

Rating: ****

Official website: www.onenightstand.com

Rated: R(A)

IT'S IN THE TELLING

"Do you want to go to bed?" Snipes asks Kinski, then slaps his forehead with the palm of his hand, "I mean,"

"I know what you mean," Kinski says back.

Like Figgis' other feature films (LIEBESTRAUM and LEAVING LOS VEGAS come to mind) so much is unsaid in ONE NIGHT STAND, and for the better. Combined with signature Figgis directing -- characterized by the using of film style (especially music) to play ou t the story events, ONE NIGHT STAND is a heady, visually engrossing re-tell of a pretty standard story.

[ Horde trying to get off ship. ] The story, begat by Joe Eszterhas (apparently he had his credit removed after reading Figgis' rewrite), is simple. Married Max (Wesley Snipes) -- an advertisement director -- misses his flight out of New York (he lives in L.A.) and spends the night with Karen (Natassha Kinski), who is also married, in her hotel room. The next day he returns to his wife Mimi (Ming Na-Wen) in L.A., who is presented to us as much louder, a little tackier (she drives a pink volkswagon) and a whole lot more bourgeoise than t he taciturn and whispery Kinski. Although Mimi doesn't find out, the elicit encounter takes its toil on Max. He turns into a huge asshole and troubles arise in his relationship with Mimi. A year later, he returns to New York to re-visit Charlie (Robert Downey, Jr), a good friend with whom he had reconciled a year earlier after a five-year feud. Charlie is now dying of AIDS, and his friends and family are rallying round. It's then that Max meets Charlie's brother, Vernon (Kyle MacLachlan), and sister-i n-law. The latter, as it turns out, is Karen.

[ Ming Na-Wen and Wesley Snipes sharing a moment of hard, angry passion. ] Despite ONE NIGHT STAND's three-movement development, the film is built around oppositions and a number of ironic contrasts. Max's pairing with Karen is conveyed in sequences full of silently exchanged, knowing glances and freeze-framed sensuality, bless ed by a passionate Beethoven string quartet and heady fusion soundtrack; his life with Mimi is characterized by unthinking pop music (in a particuarly telling movement, a pop song with a pounding bass beat bursts out the moment Max's plane lands in the L. A. airport, stamping out the breathless jazzy riffs of the night before), empty social gatherings peopled by non-soulful Advertising People and dictatorial sex. Parallels are also of course drawn between New York (Karen) and L.A. (Mimi). It might all be just a little too obvious (how's this for a meaningful comparison: the tryst takes place on the night of the fiftieth anniversary of the UN), but the casting of characters as Types in ONE NIGHT STAND ironically allows Figgis to concentrate on the way he tells the story, and that has always been one of the most interesting things about a Figgis film.

[ Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie. ] The heart of ONE NIGHT STAND, and its obvious center, is Charlie. Again, of course, with the strange coincidences. Robert Downey Jr. is beautiful and saddening as the diminishing, wise Charlie, and it's hard not to think of his real-life problems with d rug addiction when you watch him. Another aspect that gives you a peculiar feeling is the visual similarity between the Snipes-Kinski coupling and that of Cage and Shue in LEAVING LAS VEGAS. Both Natassha Kinski and Elizabeth Shue have the same purity o f profile and flaxen hair (it probably has to do with lighting), and the scene where Kinski sits atop Snipes in ecstasy inevitably recalls its more poignant parallel in LEAVING LAS VEGAS.

The rich (inter)textuality and dense atmostphere of ONE NIGHT STAND make up for what would probably be, according to classic Hollywood conventions, poorly (or not clearly) motivated characters, and also for Figgis' way of leaving out standard Hollywood m oments and required information from his narratives. Charlie's death is an example. It goes completely unshown, but yet is an important event because it eventually unites the menage a quatre in more ways than one.

[ Natassha Kinski as Karen. ] Overall, ONE NIGHT STAND is delightful, intelligent, and strange. Strange in the way movies that don't tell you everything at their ending are strange, and not strange like Mimi from the Drew Carey show. A lot of this has to do with the wonderful perfor mances given by all the lead characters. Kinski -- how old is this women?! -- does a good job of being both winsome and mystifying (winstifying?) at the same time, while Wen and Snipes are good at winning both our empathy and dislike. Post-affair Max, f or example, is a combination of obnoxiousness and anger that can be somewhat distancing, and because the movie seems to be told from his perspective, it isn't always easy to understand what he's going through.

Overwhelmingly shunned by American audiences, ONE NIGHT STAND is a pleasant shelter from current blockbuster offerings, whether they be the stultifyingly banal I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, or the boring TITANIC.

The Flying Inkpot's Rating System

* Wait for the TV2 broadcast.
** A little creaky, but still better than staying at home with Gotcha!
*** Pretty good, bring a friend.
**** Amazing, potent stuff.
***** Perfection. See it twice.

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wesley is good