This might be the first time that a Hindi film heroine has insisted that a one-night stand remain exactly that. Does she get away with it? Debutante director Jasmine Moses-D’Souza doesn’t answer that question but a hat-tip to her for posing it in the first place.
Anupama says, she was curious to see what two women, Jasmine and the writer Bhavani Iyer, do with the complicated and polarizing persona of Sunny Leone. They preserve it but also subvert it. They try and create a layered character for her.
The bad news is that the talent, both in front of the camera and behind it, simply isn’t mature enough to handle these complex ideas. The truth is that both Sunny and the leading man Tanuj Virwani are too raw as actors to enact this story convincingly.
The filmmaker has the courage to pick a compelling topic but she doesn’t have the craft yet to see it through. One Night Stand is a hot-house of inconsistent messaging. The film also doesn’t deliver on its inventive premise. It just plods along clumsily and then abruptly comes to an end.