Two Night Stand

Two Night Stand follows Analeigh Tipton’s Megan as she decides to embark on a one-night stand with Miles Teller’s Alec, with the pair, having squabbled the morning after, forced to spend another day together in the wake of a nasty snowstorm. It’s immediately clear that Two Night Stand benefits greatly from the appealing and thoroughly charismatic efforts of its stars, as both Tipton and Teller manage to transform their fairly stereotypical characters – ie he’s sloppy and mellow, she’s high-strung and quirky – into figures worth caring about and rooting for. (And it certainly doesn’t hurt that the actors share a considerable amount of chemistry together.) The predictably meandering narrative ensures that Two Night Stand tends to run hot and cold, with the movie rarely rising above the level of a passable distraction that’s riddled with paint-by-numbers romcom elements. Having said that, it’s hard to deny the effectiveness of a few key sequences – with the best and most engaging example of this a rather captivating segment in which Megan and Alec critique one another’s sex techniques. Two Night Stand unfortunately closes with a decidedly ineffective stretch containing the hoariest of romantic-comedy cliches (ie the fake breakup), and yet it’s ultimately the endless charm of the actors that prevents one from checking out completely.

**1/2 out of ****