There's a bit of double reverse something-or-other at work in Patrick Stettner's The Business of Strangers.

The film seeks to dig into the sociological psyche of sexual power by confining two women, a middle-aged corporate executive (Stockard Channing) and a 23-year-old corporate assistant (Julia Stiles), to a generic airport hotel and presenting them the complicated opportunity for revenge against a rapist. This scenario, however implausible, is designed to let the playwright--I mean filmmaker--speculate on female wish-fulfillment by way of exploring the intricate entanglements of trust and competition between women. On that level, this film is compelling and, thanks largely to Channing, a masterpiece of layered responses.

Far from being polemical, Business is more like a helix of cryptofeminist question marks. It's a character study and a moral exploratory, investigative and restrained; its observations are shrewd and full of empathy. But they're dealt from a stacked deck.

For all its artful construction, Business is a male fantasy, right down to the boilerplate element: two women in a hotel room (lesbian overtones noted). They seem strong, smart, and capable. Inside, however, they're soul-dead basket cases; one crippled by a career spent eating shit, the other tormented by a dark secret into numbness and ironic detachment. Stettner establishes the women's polished exteriors, then zooms in tight to find the cracks. But in presuming that their power is built on a constant struggle to bury psychic tumult, he unwittingly betrays a subtle, damning condescension.

Early on we see Channing's character, a hardworking corporate lifer, being made a CEO. It's an unexpected promotion; she'd expected to be fired. When she learns the opposite is true, she's neither happy nor relieved--she's nearly catatonic. At the moment of her success, the futility of life kicks her in the head and she becomes incapable of experiencing joy. It's a fine moment, but it lends the inescapable sense that the film is pressed on the other side of the glass ceiling, looking down.