The Business of Strangers is a 2001 American drama film that tells the story of an eventful night shared between a middle-aged businesswoman and her young assistant.

When her CEO contacts her and asks her to meet him for dinner afterward, she worries that her job may be in danger and engages the help of a headhunter named Nick Harris to look for a new position.

Her mood worsens when her new assistant Paula Murphy is 45 minutes late to the meeting, which as a result goes badly.

Paula finds a magic marker and they write words on Nick's chest and back like "pig" and "rapist".

The next morning, Julie finds the word "loser" written in marker on her own stomach, and a few Polaroids on the bed of Paula sitting next to her own sleeping form.

[1] Writing for the BBC, Neil Smith compared the film favorably to In the Company of Men, praising the "insightful script, [...] sleek cinematography, and [...] acerbic one-liners" along with "the inspired pairing of Channing and Stiles [which] creates real dramatic fireworks".

[4] Conversely, in the Portland Mercury, Katia Dunn wrote that while the screenplay is good, "Julia's flatness leaks into every part of the movie" and that her "inability to act" single-handedly dooms the film as unlike her two other movies that year, O and Save the Last Dance, "there are no dance or sex scenes for Julia to fall back on", concluding that the film "should be a lesson about what happens when bad actors try to do arty movies: Disaster" and that "Julia Stiles should stick to what she does best: Nothing".