Screen Daily - One of the most powerful surviving social taboos – a mother’s rejection of her new-born baby – is turned into a small but resonant drama in Emily Atef’s second feature, which was one of the highlights of this year’s Critic’s Week in Cannes. With a subject (and budget) that might have made for a worthy TV drama, The Stranger In Me is lifted by a finely-structured script of surprising thematic depth, a sure feel for cinematic composition and lighting, and above all by a strong cast led by a magnetic Susanne Wolff, who makes us sympathise with a woman whose behaviour is, by most people’s standards, repellent.
But this is the film’s market dilemma: that however sensitively the subject of post-natal depression is treated here, it will be a turn-off for many distributors, despite the film’s redemptive ending. It’s the very soberness of Atef’s approach that makes this such a powerful drama, but this may limit the film’s chances with the sort of hardcore filmbuffs that pride themselves on their ability to take uncomfortable themes. The Stranger In Me is one of those commercial paradoxes: an unpretentious issue film that will work best with a wide, socially mixed audience it will almost certainly never get…[Full Story]
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