I honestly don't know how to review DEAR STRANGER . The basic plot is good but there are so many issues.
The film is the story of a couple who are torn apart by the aftermath of a robbery which opens up secrets of the past.
Before I write about the film I need to say a that I live in the New York City area. Because of this my reaction to the film is going to be different than someone who is not from New York. I am saying this up front because right out of the box the film seemed wrong. While the locations were New York, it never felt like New York. Yes, the film was shot in the outer boroughs, in places I recognized but at the same time it didn't feel like the city. For the first time, in tens of thousands of movies over the course of my long life, many shot elsewhere in the world, this was the first time I've ever seen a film set in the city that felt wrong. Honestly watching the film I felt like I was watching a film set in Boston. I don't know why because I've never been to Boston.
There is another problem with the film in that while the film is in English, not everyone speaks the lagnuage well. Hidetoshi Nishijima's delivery doesn't sound natural. It sounds phonetic. It doesn't sound right, especially since I've seen him a numerous films and he never seemed vocally awkward. Related to this is there an oddness of the communication between Nishijima and Lun Mei Gwei, who plays his wife. For a long married couple how they communicate in English (He is Japanese, she is Taiwanese) it doesn't feel right. (Though it clearly explains why there is a rift between them)
Dramatically there is a solid narrative thread running through it but there are issues with how the film is told.
The first issue is how the violence in this film is matter of fact. Early in the film a store that Jane (Lun Mei Gwei) is robbed. Its a robbery of a sort that have never seen before, where the masked men wander in and then wander out. Watching a supplied screener link I had to rewatch the sequence several times because it didn't make sense. Related to this is the fact that everyone kind of takes the robbery in stride. It's something that happens and no big deal. They take the robbery in stride way too much. In a weird way all the violence is taken in stride. It never feels right.
Another issue is that I can't, for the life of me, understand why or how Keni and Jane are together. Yes there are moments where you sense a connection, but largely there is no sense that they are together or why they are...or were. Because we can't really see them as a couple we never connect to the chracters.
The last issue, and one I can't really discuss lest I reveal too much, is that there are more than a few turns that don't feel right. The film is very melodramtic and some of the turns are melodramatic. The turns feel less like real life then the handiwork of the filmmakers.
And yet despite all the issues there is something here. There is something about the underlying story that pulls us along even though we are never fully invested. There is something here that keeps you watching and keeps you hoping it will change into the great thing we know it can be.
Yes this is a mess, but it's an interesting mess. If you can go with that see this film.
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