A number of films employ an infidelity motif to frame, expand, or elaborate on a plot. Often, the third act of a film hinges on the act and steers the audience toward an interpretation of one character or another. Take a recent movie like the The Kids Are Alright, where infidelity attempts to vilify two characters – Ruffalo and Moore – while it presumes vindication for the third (Bening). The same might be said for Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal (both by Adrian Lyne), in which the female transgressors are ultimately seen as the antagonists – as are, to a lesser degree Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) and John Gage (Robert Redford), respectively. The reasons for this are more stereotypically stigmatized than anything else; however, the sexual interloping limns both arcs, creates conflict, and imagines the characters.
In a somewhat refreshing approach, Last Night avoids the focus on sexual relations – for the most part – and leads the audience through various cuts between a husband and wife who find themselves on separate paths to respective trysts. Of course, these paths are initially chartered by tension within the first five minutes of the movie: Joanna Reed (Keira Knightley) is running late to get dressed for a party for which her husband Michael (Sam Worthington) is already suited in black tie apparel. Not sure if this stereotypical conflict between man and woman should impel the desire for adultery, but, here, their mutual frustration carries over to the gathering at Michael’s firm, and Joanna’s paranoia is piqued by the attention Michael pays to his co-worker Laura (Eva Mendes).
As Joanna drinks wine and mingles with others, she spots Michael and Laura on a terrace. Nothing really happens between the two aside from Laura’s hand resting on his shoulder, but this visual is enough to prompt Joanna to go silent and offer the all-telling “nothing” as a rejoinder to Michael’s inquiry of “what’s wrong?” Joanna’s all-too-familiar inflection that bespeaks frustration and annoyance bordering on anger doubly confirms that something is amiss – as does her scowl-ridden dash from the elevator and the aggressive removal of her clothing as she prepares to sleep on the couch. Her reaction – along with Michael’s sincere disavowal of infidelity – begs the question as to whether or not she has some harbored guilt of her own, and this is the interesting part about Last Night: its break down of the minutia of a potential transgression, and moreover whether or not infidelity is defined by intent, deep-rooted desire, or a physical action.
To its credit, Last Night avoids the pedestrian discussion of whether or not a “break-up” permits transgressions. This has been tackled so readily by sitcoms that to see it in longer form would be less comical and more tedious; likewise, the film takes a look at temptation as an unpredictable human element, something that shies away from Puritan rhetoric and makes its characters flawed from the start, most notably Joanna, who – despite her aggression towards Michael’s conversation with Laura – buries a former flame’s phone number under the ambiguous, androgynous moniker “A” as opposed to Alex. While she hasn’t seen him for two years, and his residence is a fair distance from New York, his very presence on her phone could conjure questions within Michael – or, at least that’s what Joanna’s minor subterfuge suggests. And, with that last sentence, Last Night prompts the question “how does one rate subterfuge as a minor or major violation?”
At the same time, Last Night might also try to be too artsy for its own good. What I mean to suggest is that its constant mellow score juxtaposed with arguments that vacillate between jovial and tense does less to symbolize a natural balance and more to lull the viewer into believing the rather artificial interactions are organic. Likewise, the constant cuts from similar discussions between Joanna and Alex (Guillaume Canet) – the “A” who mysteriously, and almost stalkerly, arrives outside of Joanna’s door – and Michael and Laura (who happen to be on a business trip in Philadelphia) are a bit wearisome in that the dialogs become mostly perfunctory and, most often, devolve to exposition. This is most apparent when Joanna and Alex go to dinner with two of Alex’s business associates. As Alex steps out for a smoke with his friend’s wife, Truman (Griffin Dunne) grills Joanna with prying questions like “How long have you been married … What does your husband do … Were you faithful …Would that stop you? … How long were you and Alex together? … Do you think you’ll tell your husband about tonight?” Disregard the fact that all Joanna is doing – and all Truman is aware of – is having dinner, so the assumption that she’s going to sleep with Alex seems rather unwarranted. That aside, this interrogation is much less relevant than it is a form of exposition. Ultimately, when pedestrian dialog masked as cleverness leads to exposition, the result is still exposition. And in this case, it is rather useless. The audience is aware of the tension between Joanna and Michael, something that’s doubly showcased as she ignores his first phone call and when their second phone call is riddled with banal chit chat like “how was your day? … the [phone] connection’s not very good” (which might be one of the more transparent metaphors found in the script). In the end, the pseudo philosophical jargon launched by Truman, and eventually by Laura when it’s Michael’s turn to be exposited, is time filler, not poignant or revelatory.
What Last Nighi does well is avoid the closure. The audience knows what each person has done when they’re reunited at home in the last scene. The question is “what happens next?” Since the movie ends on Joanna’s inhale, it’s unclear if she’s planning a confession or an accusation. Do her purple heels in the middle of the living room floor rat her out to Michael who would do best not to say anything incriminating? The end doesn’t save the movie or make it worth watching again, but it does offer a novel take on the infidelity motif, moving its existence from the source of conflict to an end result of a dozen other conflicts.
