Writer: Diego Scerrati
Director: Liam Calvert
Alexander Lincoln’s Oliver is so repellent and loud at the start of Liam Calvert’s debut feature, a kind of queer Before Sunrise, similarly taking place over a single night, that it promises to be a long evening indeed. But after 30 minutes, Lincoln tones down the obnoxiousness of his character (or, less likely, we get accustomed to his larger-than-life posh boy persona) to the extent that the film finally offers some rewards.
In many ways, A Night Like This acts as a companion piece to Marco Berger’s The Astronaut Lovers, also showing at this year’s Flare. Both films chart the relationship between an out gay man and a straight man; Berger, as usual, places his men in sunny Argentina, while Calvert’s protagonists wander through a rainy London around Christmas time. In Berger’s film, Pedro and Maxi’s relationship runs like a holiday romance but there is more at stake in Calvert’s movie.
But these raised stakes sometimes push his film into melodrama. It begins with a suicide attempt on Waterloo Bridge as we see struggling actor Lukas contemplate taking his life. One of his hands is wrapped in a bandage. Drawn to a pub where the sign invitingly displays the words ‘Take Courage’, Lukas meets Olivier, drunk, coked-up and with bloody knuckles, grieving the loss of his father. Somehow, when they later take the same bus, they become friends; Only ephemeral friends, however, as they agree only to stay together until 8am the next morning.
They end up in jazz bars, silent discos and even A&E at one point, both offering support and solace to one another. Oliver proclaims that they are alike, despite the fact that he has money and privilege, things that the German actor lacks. Lincoln almost convinces, but Lukas has much more to lose as daylight beckons. It’s a credit to the skills of Lincoln that we almost sympathise with Oliver, who has wads of £50 notes in his wallet and a nightclub as capital.
As Lukas, Jack Brett Anderson is plagued with doubt and broken with hurt, so different from the actor when he appears on stage after the film’s World Premiere at BFI Flare. His German accent and straightforwardness are a salve to Oliver’s exuberant mateyness. Most of us would have run a mile to escape Oliver’s angry bluster, but Lukas has nothing else but loneliness. Nevertheless, the film runs the risk of representing Oliver as a straight saviour to a gay man’s plight.
As they cross the capital, other London issues are discussed, but none in any depth. One bar they go to, where Oliver gives us a sweet song, is about to close because of gentrifying forces, and the two men meet a homeless boy who they try to help. Theirs is a London that is both familiar and strange, with deserted streets and empty buses, signs that the metropolis is not a haven for everyone.
Regardless of its romantic tones, it would be hard to label A Night Like This a romcom. It’s too troubled and dark. Perhaps, like Richard Linklater, Calvert can update the story in nine years’ time when Oliver and Lukas meet up in daylight hours.
A Night Like This is screening at BFI Flare 2025 from 19-30 March.
The Reviews Hub Score
Take Courage
