January 20, 2001

The Business of Strangers
(IFC) Rated R
Release Date - December 7, 2001

The film is, simply, about two women -- an aging and somewhat unhappy corporate climber, and a young, lanky, bad-a** babe -- and one man whose relationship with both women is somewhat of a cipher... for a while. The film keeps daring you not to believe the way the relationships blossom, but between Stettner’s script and the near-perfect performances of Stiles and Channing, you can’t help yourself.

In some ways -- although Ms. Channing felt differently when we discussed it later in the day -- the film is very much a gender-reversed version of In the Company of Men. Yes, the quixotic intentions of the two women in this film are quite different from the kind of long-defined intentions of the men in the Neil Labute film. However, The Business of Strangers would say that the nature of men and the nature of women are so different that I still think the reversal holds true. Both films make the viewer wonder about the boundaries that people set for themselves in their interactions with others.