Avid Climber The Business of Strangers is about the world of those women jockeying their lives in the phallocentric spheres of our society. It's a great movie done with very little.The good. Simple yet very elegant mood and settings. Solid editing. Interesting, realistic, and straight forward story. Nicely put together characters who evolve before our eyes.The actors. In this production, we can see Julia Stiles starting to spread her wings and some of her potential. However, as much as I love her, Stockard Channing is the real star here. She portrays the power business woman, her struggle and her changes of mood, with incredible clarity.The bad. The emptiness of ordinary lives usually filled with glitz and details by Hollywood can be slightly disorienting here. I think it's perfect, but not for everyone.The ugly. Nothing.The result. Very low key character driven film. Don't expect a dazzling display, turn on your brain, and you won't be disappointed.

rjennica Stockard Channing and Julia Styles deserve Oscars for this would-be psycho thriller which, as others stated, just built you up, just to let you down. It could have been more mind bending if the surprise element of Julia's true character revealed, had been more thoroughly explored rather than teasing us for so long, with no shock value at the end. Doesn't have to be blood and gore, but certainly some kind of "consequence" for the malicious actions of both women against an "innocent" man besides leaving us with the proverbial thought, 'Oh, maybe I really don't want this job...I should get a life.' Still, for all the potential 'could've beens', I enjoyed the movie.

faraaj-1 Business of Strangers is sold as a film about corporate manipulation. It deals with Stockard Channing (giving another wooden performance) as a business executive on an out-of-town meeting who learns while there that she has been promoted. She also fires her newly hired assistant Julia Stiles for coming late for an important business meeting. Nick Harris is the head-hunter who works for her company, who is also in town for a corporate meeting.Business of Strangers revolves around these three characters and the time they spend together at the hotel-airport when they miss their flight. There are subtle lesbian overtones at the start of the movie. Stiles is undoubtedly the villain of the piece - the poor, ambitious girl struggling to be a writer. Nick Harris and Channing are the ones cast in a more sympathetic light despite the fact that their professions should not draw any sympathy.There was nothing striking about the plot or the dialogue. Julia Stiles is a good actress and someone to watch out for - if she can get out of the Ludlum action movie cycle.

jason_13 The Business of Strangers is a thriller, I would say one of a kind, but this time, this is not in the positive meaning of the word positive. Well, maybe it's only me, but I thought the movie is too strange for its own good. Of course I liked some scenes, but the movies was boring overall and as I said couple of times already - strange. So we have a mature woman who fires a young beautiful girl, but after she realizers life is not that bad, she brings the girl back to her job when they meet in a hotel. In fact the movie continues in the hotel and ends there which I consider as another pointless act.The plot's direction leads us to another kind of movie, highly different than the first 15 minutes which are kinda promising if you don't have some big expectations. The movie is overrated according to IMDb's rating. It's even for 6.0. This is my opinion of course, but I am just saying this, cause your expectations might become higher if you see the rating and you might think the movie is special or something. As I said, it is different, but I didn't like that. I suppose, I should give some arguments why I don't like the movie that much or why I think it's strange. Well, there are some SPOILERS below. We have something like a friendship between a young beautiful girl with self confidence, eccentric character and optimistic look on her present and future life and a mature woman with strange understandings of life, dark past and pessimistic look on her future life. These 2 totally different girls meet and the movie becomes strange. First the director and writer as well, recreates a lesbian kind of story which was kinda strange addition to the plot and the idea of the movie. This is the main problem with the movie. I didn't get what does the creator of the movie, want to show with this relation between the two females. Then, when we think that these 2 girls are about to kiss or something, or if not, they would become best friends and they will trues each other although of them is under the control of the other when it comes to their job. Nope, that does not happen. When a guy arrives and meets Julie Stile's character, she tell her mature friend who knows the guy from a long time, that he had raped a friend of hers. Another strange plot twist that I didn't like. It was a really strange decision of the director. After these 2 strange plot directions, I realized the movie symbolizes something and it's full of deeper meanings that are not necessary at all.Other than the stuff above, I was surprised from the good acting, the nice themes and the good directing. These things made me give a good rating for the movie. I don't quite know why. I guess, I've been in good mood. I always look for a great plot in similar kind of movies. Anyway, I don't recommend it to anyone, although I can't say it's the worst movie ever. I guess it just lost its potential, trying to be a thriller like no other.