The Business of Strangers

A maliciously funny and keenly observant movie -- director-writer Patrick Stettner makes a potent feature debut -- that serves its humor dark and without artificial sweeteners.

The dynamic between Channing and Stiles is as compelling as a freeway wreck.

Mr. Stettner has a serious subject here -- how the hurts that women suffer at the hands of men can be internalized more deeply than the victims know -- and his film is graced with a stunning performance by Ms. Channing.

One is left with an unsettling ambivalence about the night's awful events -- there are no absolute villains here, just as there are no total victims -- and much of the credit is due to the performances.

Plays largely like a performer's showpiece, with all the showboating and not so surprising character twists that entails, but Stettner comes out the other end with a pleasantly modest and satisfying revelation.

The Business of Strangers goes too far in dramatizing Julie's primal, Paula-fied surge of female fury, and the script finally mistakes respectful ambiguity for vaporous drift.

Stettner's vision of both women lacks fullness, relying on stereotypes of feminine strength and vulnerability.