Director: Thomas M. Wright
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris, Jada Alberts
Year: 2022
A complete surprise and a shockingly great film, The Stranger comes from Australia with a message and with talent, vaulting up my top of the year list and cementing itself darkly into the recesses of my mind. It’s a movie that you shouldn’t watch lightly, one that will haunt you, like Prisoners, and one that you will probably not want to watch again. But its value is undeniable, and its quality is, just, high. We’re used to gripping, gritty dramas out of the land down under, and that’s what we get again, and it never gets old.
Based on a true story and on a Mr Big police procedure, this is the recounting of years worth of criminal investigation to catch a killer long after his heinous crime. A Mr Big operation is an undercover investigation that involves creating a faux crime ring in an attempt to lure a suspect into trusting undercover police and discussing an old crime. This cold case solving method involves dangerous, weary work, and guarantees no results, but for a team of police in Western Australia, it was their only opportunity to discover the truth about the death of a boy many years before, and to finally bury the past.
You can call it a slow burn, you can call it Australian grit, but whatever you call it, add it to your Best Of lists, because The Stranger is a film that refuses to be forgotten. It’s a horrendous tale, a miserable investigation, and yet a dedicated attempt at justice, one that you almost can’t believe is true until you look it up, and then, after, you hold your loved ones tighter. Edgerton & Harris are incredible as the leads, so emotional and real and sad and fucked up, and the filmmaking from the first moment to the last is intentional, artistic, and yet perfectly plain, like a slap in the face but with a deadly grace. A bit slow, sure, but worth the time and energy; if you feel yourself falling just let yourself go in, and you will come out clapping.
My rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆