One Night Stand review: Confusing cinematic experience

Indranil Banerjee’s short film, One Night Stand shifts from a one-night stand between John (Sounak Dey) and Aimee (Debopriya Chakraborty), to a psychological thriller, without proper closure and a lack of connection between the two segments. The ending raises the question of whether the one-night stand was at all necessary.

The film has an open ending, leaving it to the audience to make their individual interpretations. However, it can be said with certainty that Aimee is a person, with severe psychological issues. As the film has both real and dream sequences juxtaposed together, it is difficult to identify the actions occurring in real time. Nevertheless, even if Aimee is not established as a psychopathic killer, she definitely hallucinates and creates an imaginary world suffused with her fears, which threaten her in real life. 

Right from the beginning, the film's background score creates a sense of anticipation, like in horror sequences. In some sequences, John is presented with a weird look to confuse the audience about his psychological state, when it is actually Aimee who is afflicted. However, certain dark sequences suggesting John is murdering someone, just don't make sense in the entire narrative.

Aimee and her friends appear to be very vocal and causal about their sexual preferences. But Aimee seems to only derive negative interpretations from their jokes and funny comments regarding her boyfriend. Here is a confusion: in the beginning, Aimee declines John’s offer of meeting up after the one-night stand, but through the rest of the film, she and her friends continue to refer to him as her boyfriend.

In the beginning, John is shown to be obsessed with Aimee, but the situation reverses later. Aimee’s obsession on the other hand, doesn’t follow any pattern. She is not only possessive about John but has severe anger issues when people do not listening to her commands. The sketching of the characters seems totally disjointed as there is no explanation given for Aimee’s behaviour in the film.

Though the director’s intention in having an open ending is clear, the ending is likely to set off even more confusing interpretations. The dark ambience of both the outdoors and indoors, shot in low light, creates a suffocating atmosphere throughout the film.

The performances don’t require separate analysis, since it is apparent that an entire crew has also worked together as members of the the cast. Hence, the performances are quite amateurish. In short, the film offers a confusing cinematic experience.

One Night Stand is currently streaming on MxPlayer.