One Night Stand (1997 film)

1997 American drama film by British director Mike Figgis

One Night Stand is a 1997 American drama film written and directed by Mike Figgis. The film stars Wesley Snipes, Nastassja Kinski, Kyle MacLachlan, Ming Na Wen and Robert Downey Jr. The first draft of the screenplay was written by Joe Eszterhas, who had his name removed from the project following Figgis's rewrite.

The film is narrated by Max Carlyle. Max lives in Los Angeles, where he has a successful career directing television commercials and is happily married to Mimi, with whom he has two children. While visiting New York City, Max meets Karen by chance after missing a flight; circumstances keep bringing them together over the course of the evening, and they end up spending the night together. When he returns home, Max seems distant and unhappy, though Mimi can't tell why and Max won't say. A year later, Max and Mimi fly to New York to visit his close friend Charlie, who is near death from AIDS. Max meets Charlie's brother Vernon and is introduced to his new wife—Karen. Facing Karen sends Max into an emotional tailspin, and he realizes that he must tell Mimi the truth about his indiscretion.

The film was based on a script by Joe Eszterhas then at a career peak due to the success of Basic Instinct (1992). In 1994, Eszterhas sold a four page outline for One Night Stand to New Line Pictures for $2.5 million, with an additional $1.5 million to be paid once filming had started. "No one has ever paid this for a movie idea," said Eszterhas' agent Guy McElwaine. Robert Shaye of New Line said, "With Joe Eszterhas and Adrian Lyne, you're more than investing in an idea, you're investing in a film with a world class screenwriter and director who can attract world class talent." Shaye said he regarded the pitch as "a completed package [rather] than notes on a piece of paper." Eszterhas handed in his script in early 1995. According to the Los Angeles Times, his "first draft certainly wasn't the sort of script you'd want to give Bob Dole for bedtime reading. Its first 65 pages are given over to an Olympic decathlon style sexual encounter between the couple, with almost as much trash talk about sex as sex itself." New Line's President Mike De Luca said Figgis' reworking of material "fine with us, because [Mike] has a vision of how to bring the most to the material. We wanted an American 'Last Tango in Paris,' a film that explores sexual politics and hypocrisy. Joe's script was about the couple's relationship. Mike's version focuses more on the consequences." When principal photography was still occurring, Downey was arrested for cocaine/heroin possession and breaking into a neighbor's house. It has been reported that just days after this, Downey startled the crew by showing up to the film's set, and delivered what Figgis described as a "completely mind blowing" performance. He stated "He was on time and did amazing work. He was quite incredible, not only on the basis of considering that he was going through these problems, just on a very pure level." Critics noted "creepy" similarities between the pale and underweight AIDS afflicted character Charlie and Downey's real life state. At one point Downey's performance in the film was being considered for an Oscar nomination, despite the fact that Downey would have been in prison again when the awards were to take place in early 1998.

One Night Stand earned a mixed response from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 34%, based on 32 reviews, and an average rating of 5.1/10. Audiences polled by CinemaScore give the film an average grade of "C" on an A+ to F scale. Variety'''s David Rooney wrote, "as fluid, loose and seductive as the languid jazz riffs with which director Mike Figgis underscores its moods, One Night Stand is a complex, almost existential take on relationships and reassessing life choices." Rooney adds, "while it’s compromised by a far too tidy resolution that will leave many feeling cheated, what comes before is strong enough to ensure a critical support camp, and to put this New Line release across to enlightened urban audiences." CNN's Paul Tatara said in November 1997 that, "One Night Stand [is] worth watching, despite the fact that it is wandering and nearly uneventful." Regarding the performances, he said "the interplay between the Snipes and Kinski characters is charming, tentative, and thoroughly believable", also noting that "Downey's performance is a revelation, completely void of the sort of pathos that usually mar these stories." Charles Taylor of Salon had a positive view of Snipes' acting in the film, but said "Snipes is stuck in some of the movie's worst scenes. There is some truly terrible comedy with Snipes having to deal with the family dog sniffing his crotch when he returns home, and some even worse moments when he has to show his contempt for his bourgeois co workers at a dinner party he throws with his wife." On the November 15, 1997 episode of Siskel & Ebert, it received a thumbs down from Gene Siskel and a thumbs up from Roger Ebert. In a 1999 interview, Figgis was asked if he was surprised that his film Leaving Las Vegas was successful, to which Figgis replied: "Completely! I thought it would bomb horribly and thought that One Night Stand would be a huge commercial hit! (laughs) I'm very glad Leaving Las Vegas did well, and still don't quite know what happened with One Night Stand". When ranking the 59 films of Robert Downey Jr. in 2021, Kyle Wilson of Screen Rant placed One Night Stand'' at 47th. He said, "this drama doesn't really have the bite or sensuality one might hope, but it does boast some extremely good performances, most of all Downey, who brings a soulful sensitivity to the potentially cynical and awards baiting role of the sick friend."

Wesley Snipes won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 54th Venice International Film Festival.