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It is truly an extraordinary moment for great cinema in Italian cinemas: after the beautiful “Past Lives” and the very powerful “La zona d’interest”, released in recent weeks, this weekend too a simply unmissable novelty arrives on the programme. This is “Strangers”, the new feature film by British director Andrew Haigh starring Andrew Scott.
The Irish actor plays Adam, a screenwriter who, during a night like many others, meets Harry, a neighbor of his. While they start dating, Adam decides to face the ghosts of his past, returning to his home childhood, where he had not been for over thirty years, that is, from the moment his parents suddenly died. Arriving there, Adam will make a disconcerting discovery, capable of connecting his present with his past.
“Stranei” and the other films of the week
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Taking inspiration from the 1987 novel of the same name by Taichi Yamada, Andrew Haigh writes and directs a film of stunning beauty, in which he deals with a relationship between two men with disarming sensitivity and in which we perceive all the personal load he has put into telling the stories his characters. The theme of a sudden and occasional meeting between two possible lovers was already the basis of “Weekend”, his cult film from 2011, incisive but lacking the dramaturgical strength of this new film. Even more than the touching relationship between the two boys , the film however focuses on the broken relationship between the protagonist and his parents, ghosts to deal with and to whom he reveals all his emotional fragility.
A journey inside us
“Strangers” is an internal journey that the main character takes into his unconscious and among his most hidden traumas, but the film is so engaging that all of us spectators are also with him to retrace episodes of our existence, be they similar or completely different from those experienced by the protagonist. Through this extraordinary empathic ability, “Strangers” is among the most exciting and moving films of recent years, a truly new term of comparison for all those who want to deal with similar themes in the future.
Haigh had already demonstrated his talent with the beautiful “45 Years”, but here he surpasses himself by writing goosebump-inducing dialogues and shooting each sequence with truly exquisite elegance. Further added value of this magnetic work is the interpretation of a cast in excellent form, which includes – in addition to the aforementioned Andrew Scott – Paul Mescal, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell.