hyped garbage

Admirable film.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

The Business of Strangers is about the world of those women jockeying their lives in the phallocentric spheres of our society. It's a great movie done with very little.The good. Simple yet very elegant mood and settings. Solid editing. Interesting, realistic, and straight forward story. Nicely put together characters who evolve before our eyes.The actors. In this production, we can see Julia Stiles starting to spread her wings and some of her potential. However, as much as I love her, Stockard Channing is the real star here. She portrays the power business woman, her struggle and her changes of mood, with incredible clarity.The bad. The emptiness of ordinary lives usually filled with glitz and details by Hollywood can be slightly disorienting here. I think it's perfect, but not for everyone.The ugly. Nothing.The result. Very low key character driven film. Don't expect a dazzling display, turn on your brain, and you won't be disappointed.

Businesswoman (Channing) who has sacrificed her emotional well-being for corporate success unwisely allows herself to be taken in by the manipulative lies of sociopathic young underling (Stiles) while traveling. Rather improbably, the two hatch plans to assault and sexually humiliate the young male recruiter (Weller) for no apparent reason other than antipathy to his masculinity, also lodged in their hotel. This procedure is a very risky business indeed, as the young man could have a fatal reaction to the alarming combination of drugs and alcohol foisted on him. Viewers should become very edgy as this sequence of mean-spirited events transpires with the never remote possibility of dire consequences ensuing. By film's end,ironically, the hapless male victim is the only one of the three who remains unscathed and left with his innocence relatively intact through unconsciousness. The new female CEO, however, is now left to face some disturbing and unpleasant truths about herself.

Stockard Channing balances toughness and vulnerability in this intimate glimpse of how deception digs its hooks into a hard-driving corporate executive who meets a cool bohemian (Julia Stiles) with a plan and decides to go along for the ride.There's an uneasy and unconvincing bonding between the two - not the buddy kind of Thelma and Louise - that puts this story on edge. Channing brings as much life to her character as possible, yet the path she follows doesn't ring true. While she has reached a pinnacle in her career that leads to the inevitable, "What now?" question, her falling in with the Stiles character doesn't make a good enough answer.It could be the basic incongruity of this camaraderie, though, that makes it a viable thriller. I wanted to yell, "No, don't do it!" to each of the main characters at various times. And I felt that sense of dread when things started the inevitable downward spiral from bad to worse.These bad-to-worse actions of the two main characters can elicit a squirmy discomfort on the part of the viewer. Sometimes the movie's just too hard to watch. Yes, there's tension and excitement. But there's also a little too much mean-spirited violent behavior (not necessarily raw violence) that makes for difficult viewing.The movie feels like a stage play, demanding that the dialog carry the story. Unfortunately, it lacks wit and compassion, and the thin plot and weak resolution don't help out any. The best part is Channing. 6 stars.

If this is supposed to be a turn on the usual men-exploiting-women movie, then congrats to all concerned, its great to know that the playing field is now equal.It started off great, it really did. The cinematography is remarkable and I am assuming there was not a gigantic budget, but you'd never know it by what is onscreen - the 'look' of the movie is also terrific. It has a certain feel to it - I give it that much credit gladly.But then you get to the characters and the screenplay and the actual words that are said and it all goes into the garbage can very fast. I didn't buy either womans' motivation for anything. Is the woman Julia Stiles plays a psychopath, a liar, a spoiled brat or just bored? Is the woman Stockard Channing plays an idiot, a moron or just bored? For Stiles to accuse Frederick Weller of rape/sexual abuse just for the fun of it is an insult to women and men worldwide who have actually suffered such abuse. I like Weller and watched this originally to see him. I watched it again to make sure I hated it as much as I did the first time, and I did. 3/10 and that's generous on my part.