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The
Stranger
(1987)
by Johnny Web (Uncle
Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)
Although it was barely released to theaters
and never made it to DVD at all, thus indicating that
the studio which filmed it had just about abandoned it,
The Stranger is an interesting little low-budget
thriller. Bonnie Bedelia plays an amnesia victim who can
remember only that she witnessed a triple homicide, and
that she had an auto accident while trying to escape
from the men who committed the murders. The head trauma
from that very auto accident is the source of her
amnesia. The police don't believe her story because
there simply are no homicide victims anywhere nearby. A
sympathetic psychiatrist is determined to get to the
bottom of the mystery by coaxing the victim's memories
back to the surface.
I know that amnesia is a movie cliche which you probably
hate. I probably hate it more than you do because I've
seen so many tens of thousands of movies, all too many
of which rely on high-concept gimmicks like this. But I
have learned one thing about movies in all these years -
just about any premise, however thin and contrived, can
result in a watchable movie if the execution is up to
the challenge. Some of the best movies in our lifetimes
have started with preposterous and/or high-concept
ideas: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Inception,
Pulp Fiction, The Usual Suspects, Leon: the
Professional, Memento (the ultimate amnesia movie), and
so forth. What about great classics like It's a
Wonderful Life and The Seventh Seal? Even the worst
ideas can turn into great films. The Stranger is not a
great film, by any means, but it's a surprisingly good
one considering that nobody believed in it and history
has forgotten it.
On the other hand, it's a film that requires a great
deal of patience. The beginning of the film seems to
feature some continuity problems, some sloppy mistakes
(a woman running away from the baddies in high heels -
in the middle of a muddy farm!), and some unforgivable
cliches (black-and-white flashbacks in a color film).
After the first ten minutes or so, I was cursing the bad
luck that led me to yet another sloppy grade-B movie,
but then the logic of the film started to kick in.
Bedelia is, after all, an amnesia victim, and all of the
irritating, illogical elements of the film occur within
her hazy memories. By the end of the film, there is a
satisfactory explanation for all of the elements of the
film which annoyed me - even the black-and-white
flashbacks!
The film is supposed to take place in a fictional
American town named Plainville and is entirely in
English, but was filmed entirely in Buenos Aires.
Alfonso Aristarian of Argentina, the director of this
film, never made a mark in the USA and you probably
never heard of him, but he is quite well respected in
the world of Spanish-language cinema. This particular
film, while rated a respectable 6.0 at IMDb, is actually
his lowest-rated effort.
(7.75) - A Place in the World (1992)
(7.65) - Common Ground (2002)
(7.54) - Time for Revenge (1981)
(7.47) - Martin (Hache) (1997)
(7.25) - Roma (2004)
(6.74) - Últimos días de la víctima (1982)
(6.59) - The Lion's Share (1978)
(6.59) - La ley de la frontera (1995)
(6.02) - The Stranger (1987)
His best film, A Place in the World, was nominated for
the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and several of
the above films have earned him a long list of
international awards.
Bonnie Bedelia, the star of The Stranger, is one of
those women who always seemed to deserve a better
career. You know who she is - Bruce Willis's wife in
those Die Hard movies. She was a good enough actress
(Golden Globe and Emmy nominations) with classical dance
credentials, a beautiful face and a great chest. And she
seemed to stay young forever (she was 41 in The
Stranger, but looked young and fresh). Of course, she
did have a solid career spanning more than four decades,
and she's still working steadily today, but it seems in
retrospect that her talent and beauty could have moved
her up to the A-list, and it once seemed that she was
headed in that direction. Bonnie is about the same age
as Meryl Streep, but nobody knew who the hell Streep was
in 1970, while Bedelia had already appeared in two
acclaimed films: They Shoot Horses and Lovers and Other
Strangers.
What happened? Bonnie got married in 1969, started a
family soon afterwards, and virtually dropped out of the
industry in 1973. Because she concentrated on raising
her kids, she made only one film between 1973 and 1983,
thus essentially missing the critical years between ages
25 and 35. Meanwhile, at the end of that period, between
1978 and 1982, Streep emerged from obscurity to become
the most acclaimed actress in Hollywood. Should that
have been Bonnie? Maybe. Maybe not. Streep is, after
all, a giant talent. What we do know for certain is that
the ruling principle in Bedelia's career was "out of
sight, out of mind." That long hiatus served to derail
Bonnie from her track to stardom, and it proved
impossible for her to get back on the express rails when
she returned at age 35, despite a great comeback
performance in Heart Like a Wheel.
(By the way, she was born Bonnie Culkin, and is
Macaulay's aunt.)
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