In Dazzling Style, Channing Gets Down to ‘Business’

Patrick Stettner’s crackling, unpredictable “The Business of Strangers” teams Stockard Channing, a commanding presence in all media, and Julia Stiles, one of the most fearless and talented young actresses in Hollywood today. In a singularly confident feature debut, Stettner keeps us wondering whether he’s setting in motion a highly charged drama or a suspense thriller, and this uncertainty pays off most effectively at the finish.

The film is a witty, razor-sharp study of character informed by Stettner’s observations while working as an office temp. Channing’s Julie Styron is a hotshot computer software saleswoman--chic, brisk, well-seasoned and all business. When we meet her, she’s flying from one major city to another for an important presentation, but she’s hamstrung by her new personal assistant’s failure to arrive in time with the visuals. Stiles’ Paula Murphy, flying on a different flight, met with a delay not of her own making, but an enraged Julie is in no mood for excuses, and in a flash Paula loses her job.

Then Julie receives some jolting information, and the return trips of both women are delayed. Spotting Paula in a hotel bar, Julie approaches the woman she just fired to make amends to fill her need for companionship.

It’s at this point that it is possible to appreciate just how adroitly Stettner has brought very different women face to face. As they start to get to know one another, Stettner is in effect completing a circle, only to start another tangentially when Julie introduces Paula to a young headhunter, Nick Harris (Frederick Weller), whose flight is also delayed. Stettner displays a sure sense of structure that’s at once dramatic and cinematic in which to reveal layer after layer of character.

It’s clear that Julie has sacrificed all else in getting ahead in business and is one tough cookie. Paula, who warily accepts Julie’s friendly overtures, does not respect Julie’s kind of success and the price Julie has paid for it. She explains that she’s a writer who enjoys “the sloppiness of real life.” She also enjoys jousting with Julie over values and priorities. Regardless of whatever ulterior motive the often outright insolent Paula may harbor, she is getting Julie to confront herself as never before; Julie in turn drives home some truths--or does she? Paula seems essentially an enigma who may purposefully be nudging the older woman toward self-acceptance. Or perhaps she has some darker purpose.

Channing and Stiles energetically sustain Julie and Paula’s sparring until the film’s final payoff, in which the unexpected compounds the unexpected. All the while Channing is doing a superlative job of revealing the loneliness and also the middle-aging lurking just beneath Julie’s sleek facade. She is effortless in moving between Julie’s moments of certainty and control, projecting an ageless glamour and authority, and the times she’s alone and lets herself go slack, looking weary and far from fresh. Similarly, Stiles’ Paula allows herself to let go of her defiance and reveal a youthful vulnerability. Or so it seems: Stiles’ primary task is to keep us guessing. Tall and sharp-featured, Weller has considerable impact in his pivotal role as a young man who may or may not be considerably more sinister than he appears.

Ultimately, the film’s key character is Julie, who evolves so effectively in Channing’s flawless playing and in Stettner’s perceptive writing and direction. The film itself is handsome, and the impersonal quality of its airport and hotel settings underlines Julie’s loneliness and essential isolation. “The Business of Strangers” is crisp and provocative, and no small amount of its pleasure derives from Channing’s dazzling performance.

*

MPAA-rated: R, for strong language and some sexuality. Times guidelines: mature themes and situations; too intense and adult for youngsters.

‘The Business of Strangers’

Stockard Channing...Julie Styron

Julia Stiles...Paula Murphy

Frederick Weller...Nick Harris

An IFC Films release of an i5 Picture in association with HeadQuarters. Writer-director Patrick Stettner. Producers Susan A. Stover, Robert H. Nathan. Executive producers Scott McGehee, David Siegel. Cinematographer Teo Maniaci. Editor Keiko Deguchi. Music Alexander Lasarenko. Costumes Kasia Walicka Maimone, Dawn Weisberg. Production designer Dina Goldman. Art director Richard Burgess. Set decorator Tora Peterson. Running time: 1 hour, 25 minutes.

At selected theaters.