A Night Like This

Any similarity to Richard Linklater's "Before..." trilogy appears purely intentional. As part of the Frameline49 festival, this moody 2025 two-hander emulates the circular talkfest of those films as the story here focuses primarily on the enveloping relationship between the two young leads over the gratefully fleet 97-minute running time. Making their feature film debuts, director Liam Calvert and screenwriter Diego Scerrati use London's gritty nightlife as a backdrop for the chaos and sparks that occur between Oliver, a guitar-strumming extrovert, and Lukas, a contemplative aspiring actor. There was little in the film that struck me as all that original, much less life-changing with some scenes coming across as rather contrived. As the boisterous Oliver, Alexander Lincoln conveys his character's bravado with gusto, while Jack Brett Anderson captures Lukas' angst with economic precision. Their lack of chemistry, however, doesn't help reinforce the film's intention.

Screening at this year's London Flare film festival, I originally booked tickets because of Alexander Lincoln's excellent performance in the 2022 movie In From the Side.

And Alexander Lincoln is again excellent, with a bigger range in this movie. On stage afterwards he said that growing up in Surrey helped him with the obnoxious side of his role in this film!

And Jack Brett Anderson is also brilliant, and his german accent is flawless. The audience were genuinely shocked that he isn't actually german!

The character of Daniel felt miscast though - the actor was just too old for the role.

The Q&A compere suggested that London was really the extra character in the movie. And whilst it sounds like a cliche - it's pretty accurate. With lots of scenes in Greenwich, and around the Thames - London is present in so much of the movie.

Go and see this impressive little film for great acting, and great scenes around London.