One Night Stand (1978)

• 61%
• 1978
• Drama
• Thriller
• TV Movie
• Allan King
• Chapelle Jaffe
• Brent Carver
• Dinah Christie

Carol Bolts adaptation of her stage play locks its audience in a claustrophobic bachelor flat for a night of black comedy, lust and terror. Jilted on her birthday by her boyfriend, Daisy picks up night club singer Rafe and takes him home. Is he a lover, liar or psychotic serial killer? Watch and see. Watch many times. The film is more complex than it seems and remains eerily contemporary in the issues that still compel us today: law and order, psychotic killers, police and human behaviour. Rafe is by turns charming, funny, and passionate and some would say a psychopath - that is, without feelings, but is he? Brent Carver beautifully portrays the fluidity and depth of this complex character. Daisy feels for Rafe even as her feelings for him turn fearful. A primary question in art as in philosophy is what the truth is. Rafe is a living exemplar of the dilemma. The dogma that says that you cannot make a drama with a liar as its hero is shown to beuntrue.