After Hours (1985)
A film by Martin Scorsese
This is a frantic black comedy from Martin Scorsese. Griffin Dunne plays Paul Hackett, an ordinary computer office worker who has a wild night to remember (or rather for him, try to forget) in New York City. While in a diner he gets talking to a woman named Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) who gives Paul her phone number. Later that evening Paul decides to phone her. Marcy asks him to come over to her place right away. Paul arrives at Marcy's place and finds she has gone out. Marcy's flatmate Kiki (Linda Fiorentino) lets Paul in. While waiting, Paul helps Kiki with her sculpture by putting layers of newspaper onto it. Kiki is soon asleep. Marcy returns, and that's when things start to take an increasing turn for the worse for Paul - and he is soon thrown into an amazing series of nightmarish scenarios. Marcy dies. He loses his last $20 bill out of the window of a taxi. He isn't allowed on the underground. It starts to rain heavily. He has his hair partly shaved in a punk club. He is accused of burglary, and the victim of a witch-hunt.
We feel for this poor guy Paul Hackett because everything that can go wrong for him does go wrong for him. Fate transpires everything against him. We like this guy, and he seems to be cursed. All he wants to do is get home, but this seems to be impossible. It's an immense sense of paranoia where this district of New York City is some kind of outlandish hell, where Paul thinks everyone is out to get him, but in this case it is seemingly and frighteningly true.
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