Last Night DVD and Blu-Ray Release Review

Last Night is a pretty take it or leave it kind of film and for this reason I have given it 3.5 stars.

The theme of this film will feel very familiar to anyone accustomed to watching this genre, it has been covered many times and is frankly nothing new. The tale, written and directed by Massy Tadjedin (The Jacket), tells the story of a young married couple, one of whom is going on a business trip with a sexy work colleague and the other one who bumps into an old flame while her husband is away.

As you can imagine, Last Night then goes on to show how they each deal with the situations in which they are placed. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the writing or the script, it just fails to captivate.

There are a number of excellent performances in the film, notably Kiera Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean, Love Actually), Sam Worthington (Avatar, Clash of the Titans), Eva Mendes (Hitch, 2Fast 2Furious) and Guillaume Canet (The Beach, Tell No-one) as the couple and their potential love interests.

Included on the disc are the special features: Making Of featurette and Theatrical trailer.

All in all I would say that if you are into this kind of film and have enjoyed others in the same vein then you will probably like Last Night, but it certainly isn't for everyone.

Last Night is available to buy now on DVD and Blu-ray.

Last Night - image and trailer

When a press release starts with a line that says "LAST NIGHT stars KEIRA KNIGHTLEY, EVA MENDES, SAM WORTHINGTON and GUILLAUME CANET in an emotionally powerful story of trust, lust and deception." then it gets your attention immediately. The trailer, unfortunately, only shows Trust and Deception...

Keira Knightley and Eva Mendes join forces in this tantalizing and emotionally powerful story of trust, lust and deception. Last Night is a brilliant evocation of all the grey zones of fidelity – how a choice made in a mere instant can be of regrettable and irrevocable consequence. Michael and Joanna Reed (Sam Worthington and Keira Knightley) seem to have it all. Young, attractive and successful, they’re a married couple who’ve lucked into spiritual and material well-being, sharing a comfortable and seemingly perfect life in their trendy Manhattan apartment. But when the Reeds attend one of Michael’s work parties, Joanna witnesses a suspicious moment between her husband and his beautiful new co-worker, Laura (Eva Mendes). The incident is fleeting and ambiguous – Joanna can’t be sure what she did or didn’t see – but it sows an insidious seed of doubt that festers at the core of their love.

In her breakthrough directorial debut, Massy Tadjedin probes the depths of her characters’ psychologies; every thought, feeling and instinct reverberates with intimate force. As the characters’ selfish motivations are pushed and pulled by the powers of lust and loyalty, a central question arises: can suspicion itself provoke, or justify, infidelity? Nothing is glossed over in this examination of the mechanics of betrayal, where the dynamics of doubt are explored to riveting effect.

Tadjedin elicits superlative performances from her actors and Knightley, in particular, does some of her best work to date, imbuing Joanna with maturity, compassion and an unbridled charge of desire. When Joanna reunites with her former flame Alex (Guillaume Canet), the chemistry that comes to life threatens to overwhelm her own feelings of fidelity towards Michael. Turning conventional concepts of morality on their head, Tadjedin cleverly manipulates our sympathies for each character, making Last Night a provocative film about modern love and marriage.

LAST NIGHT is in Cinema’s nationwide June 3, 2011