Last Night is 2010 drama that follows a married couple, apart for a night, who find themselves attracted to other people.
You might have been here before, feeling like the one you love has betrayed you … or maybe the other way ’round. A cornerstone of any sound relationship is trust, we a species demanding we remain entirely devoted to those we choose to be with, and so it is the temptations that surround us are either properly pushed to the peripheral or entangle us in deceit.
This crossroads of sorts of course has also been the cornerstone of an entire genre of entertainment with near countless books, plays, television shows, and movies taking swings at the possible outcomes and consequences of infidelity. These visit all plots along the spectrum from awkward comedies to explicit sexual interplay to straight-up horror. Somewhere in the middle of this sits writer and director Massy Tadjedin‘s conversation-based drama Last Night, released in 2010 to mostly positive reviews, featuring a career-defining turn for Keira Knightley.
It follows a couple of nights in the lives of writer Joanna Reed (Keira Knightley) and her husband Michael (Sam Worthington), a successful commercial real estate agent, who married young and are doing well financially but reveal cracks in the emotional veneer. At a dinner party, Joanna notices Michael spending much of his time with Laura Nunez (Eva Mendes), a name she knows but not well, realizing that Michael may have purposefully not mentioned her before simply because he’s clearly attracted to her.
At home, she confronts him, momentarily believing he’s been unfaithful, and while she sleeps on the sofa for the night, the couple make up in the morning, he telling her he’s never betrayed her and never would. However, that morning, he’s off to a business trip with, unsurprisingly, Laura and another co-worker. He’s about to be tested, but so too is Joanna, who, coincidentally, runs into her ex-boyfriend Alex (Guillaume Canet), he inviting her to dinner. Now, as Joanna and Michael spend the night apart, each in the company of great temptation, it’s a question if their love can keep them true.
Unlike many in this deep pool of titles, Last Night isn’t interested in the overt sexual relationships of these people, something many tend to lean on in selling the story. Sexuality obviously plays a crucial role, it being the line to be crossed, but this isn’t a movie that uses flesh to make the point. Instead, this is about the anticipation of such and the consequences if either were to do so.
Like a stage play, Joanna and Michael engage in lengthy dialogue, first with each other that pinpoint where they stand in their current state of union and then with potential lovers, the heat between them all palpable but the words far more potent. Tadjedin weaves an intricate dance of suspense around parallel moments as the film skips back and forth between Michael’s more physically-tempting encounter and Joanna’s deeply emotional connection.
The women of course are the backbone with Mendes sexually charged but never positioned to be the clichéd temptress, she playing a confident woman who knows what she wants but also what it means in claiming it. She’s electric, even if she’s not on screen all that much.
Knightley is the thing though, the absolute soul of the film, delivering what is a heart-wrenching exploration of what Joanna experiences as love, trust … and lust. Knightley had just returned to acting after a two-year absence as she dealt with personal struggles, and she does so with great ferocity. It’s a subtle yet incredibly arresting performance that remains one of her best ever. Watch how she carries Joanna throughout the film, the way she enters a room and exits a conversation. There is a simmering pain inside this woman, the layers of regret, question, exploration, struggle, and wisdom making her a truly intoxicating character that Knightley embodies with an extraordinary naturalism.
While all the men are not quite as fleshed out, and Worthington maybe a bit outmatched by his counterparts, Last Night is nonetheless a great film, tripping up the expectations of the genre while still giving it a uniquely human edge. It’s a strong film on its own, made all the better with Knightley in the cast. Highly recommended.