An at times insightful if also slight drama about the perils of marriage and sexual temptation, “Last Night” features Keira Knightley of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” films and Sam Worthington of “Avatar,” two of the most famous young actors of our time.
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Here, they are Joanna and Michael Reed, a prosperous Manhattan couple whose marriage founders on the reef of jealousy when she meets his new business colleague.
Joanna is a beautiful, fashionably rail-thin writer of some sort, whose first book went largely unnoticed and who currently works freelance, mumbling in one scene about having to pump out another 100 words (a pittance, folks).Michael is a handsome commercial-real-estate developer, who takes frequent business trips with his team.
As the action begins, Michael and Joanna are at a posh party, and he’s set to go to Philadelphia for a meeting about a hotel. When Joanna meets Michael’s stunning new colleague Laura (Eva Mendes) at the party, she suspects something is amiss because her husband did not mention what a looker Laura is. Joanna sees the two being somewhat familiar as they talk alone and becomes suspicious.
Later, Joanna encounters Parisian ex-lover Alex (French actor-director Guillaume Canet) on the street while Michael is in Philadelphia. She and Alex had a fling in Paris before she married and while she and longtime boyfriend Michael were temporarily split up. She is thrilled, so is he.
The film is talky, much of it small talk, to a fault, substituting its beautiful leads for action or special effects, and it’s a bit of a slog. But it’s nice to hear Knightley and Worthington speak in their natural accents (British and Australian). Writer-director Massy Tadjedin, who has a screenplay credit for the 2005 thriller “The Jacket,” has a good ear for dialogue between intimates and gets into interesting areas regarding the limits of fidelity. Just what constitutes unfaithfulness?
Is it the sex act itself? What if someone is intimate with another person without consummation? Knightley’s face remains one of the wonders of the world, while Worthington’s Michael seems a bit uncomplicated, thanks to the slightly bewildered masklike expression the actor wears.
Some of the developments — a late night dip in a hotel pool — leave little room for doubt about intentions, and there were times when I was confused about characters’ names — Joanne? Joanna? Alex? Alec? But Griffin Dunne is amusing as a rich, lecherous New Yorker, and the married couple and their tempters are well-lighted and beautiful enough to keep you watching, if not exactly riveted.