Tonight You’re Sleeping With Me (Netflix, 2023)
Tonight You're Sleeping With Me is a solid romantic drama from Poland, that eventually takes a tragic turn.
It tells the story of a journalist called Nina (Roma Gasiorowska) whose life seems perfectly fine: she likes her job, she has a nice enough husband Maciek (Wojciech Zielinski) and two lovely daughters.
But it only takes a couple of scenes to notice that Nina’s marriage is stuck in a rut. So she is a little confused when a new colleague at work turns out to be attractive former boyfriend Janek (Maciej Musial).
When Maciek goes to Iceland for a full month on a hiking holiday and Janek helps Nina in a crisis situation at home, it is only a matter of time before they end up in bed together. It seems that Nina will be forced to choose between the two men in her life.
Tonight You're Sleeping With Me is based on a novel by Anna Szczypczynska. It was written for the screen by Anna Janyska and directed by Robert Wichrowski, who only last year made the movie The Negative.
The first half of his new movie plays out in a subtle and believable way. You can see Nina and Maciek growing apart and Nina and Janek rekindling their love for each other.
Of course, there are the children to consider, but when Maciek senses something is going on and calls Nina’s mother from Iceland to babysit her grandchildren, he unknowingly gives Nina more opportunity to spend time with Janek.
The second half of the movie is more dramatic, with the Icelandic countryside suddenly playing an important part in proceedings and the three main characters all ending up there.
Visually the movie looks okay, even though it is not very distinctive or cinematic. It’s feels like a well-made tv-movie, which I guess in this case is fine, as you can only see it on Netflix.
The actors are fine and the movie definitely benefits from Wichrowski’s even handed direction, even though the story eventually takes a turn for the tragic and everybody loses something.
The ending did make me wonder what would happen to the characters after the end credits, so I guess in that way the movie worked for me.