Last night I, coincidentally, watched the film entitled Last Night starring Keira Knightley, Eva Mendes, Sam Worthington & Guillaume Canet. My boyfriend misinterpreted the plot, when I described it to him, as a romcom but it is anything but. It descends down the route of romance drama and never once did I find myself laughing. The performances made me feel on edge, tense with the storyline, which questioned infidelity; their acting was great in convincing me I was awkwardly interrupting and intruding in on their conversations and relationships.
[Choose now to continue reading as I may spoil the film for anyone who may not have seen it]
I opposed the Worthington and Mendes storyline from the outset with my underlying animosity for her. You don’t learn much from the characters, only small facts are fed to you as a viewer throughout the 92 minutes but I imagine her character to not have many friends and when she does, they are male. She is the kind of woman, women hate. I certainly despised the character and it doesn’t help that I’ve had a long affinity for Keira, so I was always going to be on her team.
Sam Worthington’s character acts like an excited teenage boy which really stresses me out because it is clear he knows its wrong with the amount of times he tries to call Keira, to hear her voice. It makes him come across as weak, giving into desire. It is obvious what he has for Eva is concupiscent whilst Keira it’s love.
I won’t lie, I wanted Keira with both men. Even the way Sam calls her Joey makes their relationship all very endearing, whilst Guillaume is a fleeting love affair, which is something much stronger than the lust shared between Eva and Sam. There is no lust between Keira and Guillaume, which is apparent in the tender touches they have, and the lingering hugs they share. The scenes with Sam and Eva made me impatient, as all I wanted was it to move back on to the other two, despite their ‘night’ being a lot more dangerous in the fact they happily dined together in public and visited the apartment of Sam’s work friend, where Keira even left in their Guillaume alone as she went out to walk the dog. I read a review that described the characters as too slight and plain to be compelling but I think that’s what makes them so real and so believable, they are ordinary people like the people you pass by on the street. To make them more intricate could mean the film becoming less plausible, dealing with the familiar, you want familiar characters.
It was really enjoyable being left to question what was right and what was wrong and the acting really made the film for me, without having to spell it out for the audience, their behaviour and their faces shared the tension and confusion with me as I watched on. Ultimately, it made me feel like a peeping Tom, filled with a sense of the voyeuristic.
The ending of the film has an air of French to it, Keira is confused by his early return from being away for work and his sudden affection whilst Sam notices her black high heels left out on the floor and her make up still on from the night before. You see his mind calculating, trying to put what he is seeing together and just as she goes to speak, it cuts out and the credits role.
Some people would prefer I guess for the film to complete and to be whole whilst I liked being able to interpret it how I wanted, and to be able to decide for myself what would happen after. I think the strong tension I dealt with whilst watching made me relieved at the end that I didn’t have to deal with the negative aftermath. I had been so drawn into the film; into the complexities of their relationships, that the ending almost gave me a nudge to tell me it wasn’t really my business and that it was a film, sending me back to reality.
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