May Miles Thomas not only wrote and directed, but shot and edited One Life Stand. It's an object lesson in telling a story cheaply and turning the visual rough edges to your advantage - but all that would just be production anecdote if not for the fact that this is a very fine film indeed.
This tough, harrowing but often uncomfortably funny drama gives the slice-of-life genre a new surge of energy. The sense of enclosure, as the digital black-and-white photography explores cramped apartments, bedrooms and offices, creates an uneasy intimacy that brings the characters vibrantly alive: by the end of it we know every crease on Trise's brow.
The acting is uniformly superb, and while the film is socially engaged, it doesn't take the Ken Loach route of spelling things out for us. It's a moot point whether our film and TV industry currently has room for a hard-boiled case like Thomas - but it should.