Calgary Underground Film Festival 2014 - CUFF 2014: Three Night Stand

Posted on Thursday, April 10, 2014 at 04:00 PM

Three Night Stand

by Dustin Griffin, CalgaryMovies.com

They say that there are only seven basic plots. Man (or woman) vs. nature, man, environment, machines, supernatural, self and God or religion. That’s it. Every story you read, every movie you watch, every time someone says ‘you won’t believe what happened to me today’, the ensuing story will fit into one of those categories. That’s what they say anyway. Obviously most of the plots you’ll come across will involve much deeper explorations and discoveries than a guy spending an hour and a half trying to get his coffeemaker to work. But not always. Sometimes the plot you come across is just that simple. Take Three Night Stand, for example.

Three Night Stand is a romantic dramedy about a guy who takes his new(ish) wife to a secluded ski retreat at a lodge in Quebec that he used to frequent with his ex. A woman he still has deep, passionate feelings for. When they arrive, surprise!, his ex is standing there, having just bought the lodge with plans to renovate and revamp it. Sucks for this guy. To add to the soap on a rope operatics, a handsome, charming, egotistical French actor who the guy’s wife is crazy about is also staying at the cabin with his randy, alcoholic mother. A couple more of the guy’s friends from work also show up, but are mainly there for comic relief purposes than to add any real substance to the story. As you can imagine, romantic chaos ensues with hearts broken, secrets revealed, faith lost and passions enflamed. It would all be very ‘after school sitcom’ meets ‘mid afternoon soap opera’, if it wasn’t so damn well written.

Montreal bred writer/director Pat Kiely guides the action with a deft touch and a steady hand. His dialogue is witty and realistic and his characters are all well defined, even with half of them embodying fairly obvious stereotypes. And while I was never unaware of where the story was heading, I was always looking forward to how it would get there.

Truth be told, there aren’t a lot of likeable characters in Three Night Stand. There are the obvious blowhards in the actor and his mother; the bitchy, ungrateful, high maintenance wife; the every sentence that comes out of her mouth is a wise crack-ing love interest who herself holds a secret that, when found out, makes her a bit of a dink herself. There are the comic relief friends: a married couple who’s running joke is that they’re passing a yeast infection back and forth. They’re not annoying or unlikable, but it would’ve been nice if they had something more substantial to do. And then there’s Carl. Good hearted, wide-eyed, deer in the headlights Carl. On one hand, he’s trying his damnedest to convince his wife that she’s the only one for him, while on the other he’s very obviously still carrying a hefty flame for his ex, the self proclaimed ‘love of his life.’ Nice, Carl.

I don’t fault the film for harbouring unlikable characters. I actually don’t think many of these characters were written to spark sympathetic reactions. And part of what makes the characters believable and the film work is the acting. All of the acting in this film is great. Sam Huntington in particular plays Carl perfectly, giving him the right balance of lovelorn and amorous.

I have to hand it to Kiely. He could have easily let Three Night Stand transform shamelessly into a late period Farrelly brothers film, with all the poop and dick jokes your twelve year old heart could desire. Instead, he plays it classy, even when his characters themselves don’t. His writing is sharp, his story is predictable, yes, but well formed. His direction is solid, as are the performances from his cast. Three Night Stand does nothing new and fits quite smoothly into those man vs. woman and man vs. man themes. But it’s fun, funny and frustrating, in all the ways I think it was meant to be.

Rating: ***½

Three Night Stand was reviewed at the 11th Calgary Underground Film Festival 2014.