Top Girls

Film of the Month: Business of Strangers, The

Charlotte O'Sullivan rates the corporate cool of The Business of Strangers.

When it comes to nailing America's invidious world of work, David Mamet has few equals. His most adoring fans, however, would probably admit that the king of conflict is less successful with his female characters. The Business of Strangers, a serious comedy about corporate life written and directed by newcomer Patrick Stettner, proves there are film-makers who can do both. Like Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross, it's a pitch-perfect portrait of life on the fringes of white-collar America, with dialogue that's attuned to the rhythms of modern-day business-speak. Here, though, Stettner puts at the centre of his corporate world female characters who look set to become as iconic as Jack Lemmon's trembling Shelley Levine.

Stettner's first triumph concerns his casting of Stockard Channing in the lead role of fortysomething working-class businesswoman Julie Styron. Channing is one of those actresses who's become synonymous with super-trouper vulnerability. The tremulous Liz Taylor eyes, the puffy cheeks, the veined little hands... That the glorious teenager she portrayed in Grease (1978) looked like an over-the-hill hooker seemed entirely appropriate; nor did it come as a surprise to see the rejected, high-heeled character she played in The First Wives Club (1996) wobble over the edge. Channing is a camp classic, but one of the many beauties of The Business of Strangers is that this aspect of her persona is never overplayed. Julie may have big hair and heels, but she's neither a victim nor a trashy goddess. Like Paula (Julia Stiles) and Nick (Frederick Weller) - the two characters with whom she shares one dark night of the soul - Julie is just an average, narcissistic screw-up. And Channing, it turns out, does average really well.

So does Stiles, who in a sense has the harder task. When Julie and Paula - the college girl who accuses slick head-hunter Nick of rape - first get together, the latter seems poised to become either the catalyst/alter ego who'll bring some sort of revelation to Julie's life (she wields a Polaroid camera, so often cinematic shorthand for youthful iconoclasm), or the psycho crucial to all yuppie-in-peril thrillers. But Stettner steers clear of turning Paula into either of these caricatures. She's closer, in fact, to the ambitious young woman Radha Mitchell played in New York artworld lesbian drama High Art (1998); as with that character, Paula's tendency to spout arch postmodern jargon actually disguises a rag-bag of beliefs. One minute Paula sounds like a 1970s radical ("If women wake up without their underwear, they fear they've been raped, men fear they've raped"); elsewhere she baits Julie ("Scotch, that's a very manly drink"; "Is this what the menopause feels like?") with the caustic bite of a tabloid editor.

Paula's sense of confusion is convincingly drawn, allowing us to worry for her even as we worry about her. The very things that in another film might mark her out as 'psychotic' (away from Julie, in a dark alcove, she pushes away an amorous suit she was passionately kissing seconds before; she also takes a clutch of Julie's pills when she's alone) tie us more closely to her. Paula clearly enjoys role play and manipulation, but it's oddly moving to discover that not everything she does is for an audience. The photos she takes of herself (again, when Julie is out of sight), for instance, show a face that's desperately childlike. We never get to the bottom of her neediness (there's a therapist in The Business of Strangers, but no psycho babble), but this seems a mark of respect: while we're allowed to know Julie's secrets, Paula's remain her own.

This is the first good role Stiles has had since her turn as a shrewish high-school pupil in 10 Things I Hate about You (1999). Her face ripe with sullenness, her clompy walk both authoritative and cool, she oozes middle-class savvy. That worked to her disadvantage in Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000) - there her Ophelia, haunting darkened rooms, never seemed like Hamlet's social inferior, but rather a fellow spoilt brat. Here you know exactly why Julie shouldn't underestimate her privately educated foe. Stiles is also fearless in conveying Paula's confused sexual attraction towards a woman old enough to be her mother; her desire never feels hysterical, just infectious. The scenes between the two are charged, pure and simple - if either could handle intimacy, they'd make a great couple. Nick, much maligned but clearly with his own dark sexual secrets (why doesn't he investigate why he's been dubbed a rapist?), completes the trio perfectly. He's a lightweight, but not a dummy, and the final scene - which has a surprise twist - is particularly jolting. And moving.

The Business of Strangers explores paranoia wonderfully, but seems to suggest it's ultimately unwarranted. In forging a connection based on class between Julie and Nick in the film's last moments, Stettner seals the deal on a vision of the business world as a meritocratic wonderland, a topsy-turvy kingdom where underprivileged grafters rise through the ranks, princesses wind up making coffee for the lower orders (Julie's assistant is a college girl) and kings willingly give up their thrones (Julie's boss just ups and leaves). What this distracts us from is the nature of business itself. Julie allows Paula to sneak off to the airport with money from her purse. Nick, too, never questions his empty wallet. But shouldn't we be wondering why suits like these earn so much cash in the first place? Money fuels this film. The very beauty of the cinematography is disturbing. It makes you want to check into a blank, five-star hotel immediately. The swimming pool, the intense steamroom - you want it all.

On the other hand, maybe there's something liberating about the film's scenario. Julie would rather be at the top than the bottom. As in What Women Want, what we see here is a female executive who gets kicked up the ladder, realises it's an empty victory, but carries on anyway. Compare this with the more recent Kate & Leopold, where a female executive gets kicked up the ladder, realises it's an empty victory and throws herself (literally) into the oblivion of the romantic past. Corporate culture is clearly not for everyone. From the smirk on her face as she sits at the airport, Paula obviously thinks her art is more valuable than endless access to minibars. But The Business of Strangers refuses escape routes to purity. All three characters are in some way contaminated by the evening; all three prove worthy of our respect.

Which brings us back to David Mamet. Oleanna - his attempt to explore the chaos highly educated girls can unleash on their weary, ambitious elders - was a mean-minded farce. Stettner, obsessed with the business of solidarity, shows us how it should be done. For credits and synopsis see page 39