Written and directed by Tetsuya Mariko, a Japanese man and Taiwanese-American wife’s immigrant life unravels when their son disappears. The kidnapping reveals hidden secrets, testing their emotional limits and moral boundaries. Starring: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Gwei Lun-Mei, Julian Wang, Christopher Mann, Everest Talde, Fiona Fu, Mia Reece, James Chu and Aitor Martin.
Upon opening, Tetsuya Mariko creates a very still, contemplative atmosphere, setting the scene for something complex and tense, and while it had a tonne of potential for that, it never comes to fruition. Visually, it has a nice sharpness and a darkly tinged colour palette, to attempt to feed into an intensity but tonally it misses the mark. It feels as though it can’t commit to what it’s trying to create, it’s not a thriller but it’s not a traditional drama, it’s somewhat obscure but not entirely. It has a slightly surreal quality but that never feels like an ingrained part of its style.
That sort of confusion is then only hampered further by Dear Stranger feeling very non-committal in its writing as well. The pacing is sluggish, the development isn’t really there, the dialogue is frustrating and the characters don’t feel fleshed out. What it comes down to is an over two hour film where fairly little happens, it lacks intensity to all of its thematic elements, and it throws in artistic puppetry which is almost never helpful. It adds a strange sort of metaphor that doesn’t manage to establish itself, leaving it feeling unnecessary.
Much to Hidetoshi Nishijima’s credit, he does try to make up for a lot of that with his performance. He’s one of the few elements still holding Dear Stranger together, because the foundation of the story works, but they needed to allow him to let loose and really get his teeth into it, but they only scratch the surface. It doesn’t much help that Mariko seemed to be going for something muted, the emotion mostly stays at an even level, sadly keeping too much of the intensity at bay. Something that’s reflected in Gwei Lun-Mei’s performance which is disappointingly bland and at times entirely unconvincing.
Dear Stranger had plenty of potential and some good ingredients, but the execution is slow and unsatisfying. The story opened up some interesting directions but none of them were really explored with any true depth. The performances are a mixed bag, the pacing is glacial and it feels like it’s purposefully tamping itself down, rather than letting the tensions and conflict reach their boiling point. It’s underdeveloped and overly understated.
FilmCarnage.com 