{"id":347629,"date":"2025-09-02T12:38:40","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T17:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/02\/the-stranger-first-look-review\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T12:38:40","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T17:38:40","slug":"the-stranger-first-look-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/02\/the-stranger-first-look-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stranger \u2013 first-look review"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Fran\u00e7ois Ozon and Albert Camus do not seem like a\u00a0obvious fit. The French filmmaker\u2019s rather louche and uninhibited style seems at odds with Camus\u2019 trademark ennui, the patron saint of university students who smoke roll-ups and have a\u00a0single tiny hoop earring. Yet Ozon has adapted Camus\u2019 most well-known novella, The Stranger<\/i>, which concerns a\u00a0young Frenchman in Algiers who stands trial for the murder of a\u00a0local man in cold blood. He doesn\u2019t deny the charge, or offer a\u00a0defence. The mystery is his total disinterest in the matter.<\/p>\n

The coltish Benjamin Voisin, who also starred Ozon\u2019s in <\/i>Summer of \u200b\u2019<\/span>85<\/span><\/i><\/a>, plays Meursault<\/span>. He appears a\u00a0passenger in his own life, someone who things happen to rather than one who makes things happen, disinterested in everything and everyone. His listlessness is almost comic; never once does Meursault<\/span> threaten to show any true emotion, even when he is informed by telegram of his mother\u2019s death. He asks his employer for two days off work and travels to the care home she was living in to take care of funeral arrangements; the staff there are disquieted by his apparent lack of emotion at her passing.<\/p>\n

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Back in Algiers, he feels similarly unmoved by a\u00a0job opportunity, his repugnant neighbours and even his new girlfriend. He seems incapable of feeling, and perhaps it\u2019s a\u00a0testament to Voisin\u2019s talent that he makes such a\u00a0compelling presence all the same, angelic but awful, totally agnostic to the world but not quite veering into depression.<\/p>\n

When the inevitable murder occurs, Meursault<\/span> raises his neighbour\u2019s handgun and shoots four bullets into the victim. We learn, having spent enough time with the young man<\/span>, he has no idea why he did it. Perhaps revenge, but it\u2019s not a\u00a0compelling argument. This barbaric act of violence by a\u00a0young man numb to his own privilege is shocking not in its singularity.<\/p>\n

But Ozon makes a\u00a0crucial alteration to Camus\u2019 text. He gives the murdered Algerian his name, which was omitted in the original novel, perhaps to underline how little Meursault<\/span> cared, perhaps because of its contextual production. Ozon corrects this at any rate, careful to underscore that this was a\u00a0man \u2013 an Algerian, a\u00a0son, a\u00a0brother \u2013 that Meursault<\/span> killed. He had a\u00a0family and a\u00a0life and didn\u2019t feel numb to the world like Meursault<\/span>. The racial element of The Stranger <\/i>is underscored by a\u00a0newsreel at the top of the film which espouses how lovely Tangiers has become under French governance. The indifference of Meursault<\/span> seems to parallel the indifference of the state, which the murder and mistreatment of Algerians is par for the course. The crime he commits means nothing in a\u00a0country already occupied by colonisers. It\u2019s only Meursault<\/span>\u200b\u2019<\/span>s total lack of defence which shocks the system into action.<\/p>\n

The staid black and white photography does add to the oppressive atmosphere of The Stranger<\/i>, even if it doesn\u2019t provide much in the way of visual intrigue, and the slow pacing of an already slim novel threatens to carry Meursault<\/span>\u200b\u2019<\/span>s disinterest over to the viewer. Happily there are punctuations in the supporting performances of Denis Levant and Swann Arnaud, masterfully deployed in their small scenes.<\/p>\n

The Stranger <\/i>transfers to film for a\u00a0third time in mostly compelling fashion, and the small adjustments to Camus\u2019 plot afford a\u00a0little modernity without a\u00a0more obvious update. The film doesn\u2019t expect sympathy for the privileged and disimpassioned Meursault<\/span>, and certainly doesn\u2019t absolve him (not that he wants that anyway). The Stranger <\/i>reflects the indifference of colonist states and occupiers, inflicting their values and violence for centuries, and how a\u00a0life of individualism makes us, if not monsters, then certainly cruel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n