Starring Stockard Channing, Julia Stiles, Frederick Weller, Marcus Giamatti, Mary Testa, Jack Hallett. Written and Directed by Patrick Stettner. Julie Styron (Stockard Channing) is on yet another business trip to make a pitch to a potentially lucrative client. The young assistant sent to her by her company Paula Murphy (Julia Stiles) is held up at the airport and arrives just as Julie is finishing the presentation. Julie dismissively fires Paula, and then makes her way to the airport. Julie is on edge because she thinks she is going to be fired, but instead discovers very soon that she is being promoted to CEO. Trapped in an airport hotel and feeling a little bad at mistreating Paula, she wants to celebrate with someone and she tries to make up with Paula in the bar. As the night progresses, the two women get to know each other. They flirt, they drink, they tell some secrets, and they make up a lot of stuff up. Personal flaws and fears are exposed. When they encounter an unsuspecting head-hunter (Frederick Weller) that Julie had called in to check out potential new jobs, the stakes are raised and the night turns into a game of psychological cat-and-mouse as each woman tries to show the other one up. Shown to acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival, Business Of Strangers is a tightly controlled drama about a successful business woman and her new assistant stuck in an airport hotel with time on their hands and too much booze to be drunk. At the end of the night their relationship turns into a complex battle between the generations with plenty of manipulation and displays of power. It is essentially a two-person drama, where all the action revolves around Julie and Paula. The excellent corporate revenge drama In The Company Of Men comes to mind, only the revenge is inflicted upon the man this time, but there are differences between the films, not least of which is that this film is not quite as ruthless or as satisfyingly laid out. Julie examines what she has had to give up to get to the top of the business heap, and with Paula manipulating her, she realizes her deep-seated resentment of men and what she has had to put up with in competing with them. Paula wants to be a writer and thinks she has everything figured out. She doesn't think much of Julie, nor does she have any appreciation about what older women before her had to go through to make things easier for Paula's younger generation. Both actresses stand out. Channing delivers an outstanding performance as the successful but lonely executive who has no one to share her success with. Stiles displays a hard-edge as the street-smart young college grad who's not afraid of anything. But in the shadows of the two female stars is a very fine performance by Weller as the apparently slimy head-hunter who really is a decent-enough guy who just happens to work in a cutthroat business. There is virtually no action in the film, just a series of conversations between characters. The actors are required to carry the film and they do. Business Of Strangers is a gripping, sometimes surprising examination of female competitiveness and fears, featuring two outstanding performances. I recommend it. If you would like to respond, please click the E-Mail Press Here To Go To The Review List Page