A Night Like This Review
A Night Like This follows Lukas (Jack Brett Anderson) and Oliver (Alexander Lincoln), two lost souls brought together by a chance encounter at a London pub. Theyโre immediately at odds: Oliver is a rich boy roughing it, having sunk all his money in a struggling nightclub and vaguely mourning the death of his father. Lukas, on the other hand, is a down-on-his-luck actor contemplating suicide. They end up deciding to spend a night of complete honesty with one another, a โmental one-night standโ that takes them across London with a strict cut-off of 8 am โ after which theyโll never see each other again.
The set-up is clearly romantic, the only real barrier being that Oliver is straight and Lukas is gay. The direction of A Night Like This takes is not a surprising one. Both the plot and the script are immensely juvenile, more suited to an early-career short than a feature. Itโs a surprise to be told that the central characters are close to 30 rather than 18. They both speak in shallow, pseudo-philosophical existential cliches that say nothing, clearly convinced that what theyโre saying is nihilistically poetic. In reality, it only adds to the post-club-conversation-you-have-in-a-university-kitchen feeling of it all. Supporting characters donโt add much more depth, just repeating trite platitudes about the power of love and human connection.
Perhaps the only effective joke in the piece is when the duo enter a club, the music shifting from non-diegetic to diegetic as it becomes clear that theyโre at a silent disco. It also allows for a more intimate conversation to take place without the characters having to yell at one another for minutes at a time. Itโs quite a clever choice, and one that hints at originality. Over the course of the night, and several heavy drinking sessions across various London pubs and bars, the two sway between sobriety and drunkenness at the drop of a hat. Beyond that, their emotions sway wildly without much reason. Itโs made clear that theyโre both unstable, troubled people, but the characters fall apart under their inconsistencies.
Various flashbacks hint at difficult pasts for both characters, the secrets of which are only really revealed through their conversations with one another. When things do become clear, through a single conversation in an empty, all-night greasy spoon, itโs not particularly satisfying. The issues the film chooses to bring up are more than it has the capacity to handle: abuse, suicide, homophobia, racism and classism, briefly. As the film reaches its conclusion, what should be an emotional, high-stakes situation instead feels predictable and overblown. The relationship between these two characters doesnโt feel believable, and their very real problems (particularly those of Lukas) are overlooked in favour of a neat finale.
In a society where isolation is an increasingly prevalent crisis, A Night Like This tries to reassure us that weโre not alone. Itโs an important message, one worthy of being explored, but the film takes so many wrong turns โ from concept to execution โ and is so convinced of its own intelligence that it ends up saying nothing. Thereโs a seed of potential here, but it never germinates.
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In UK cinemas from 26th September/ Alexander Lincoln, Jack Brett Anderson, David Bradley / Dir: Liam Calvert / Verve Pictures / 15
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