In doing this nothing becomes totally clear. The light of the moon invites the viewer to reflect and introspect, to imagine and associate to the images as a dreamer may do in response to a dream.
Bill, a hunter from the coast, later becomes the third in an entrapping triangle. She is enticed away one night to an island by a 'perfect stranger' who remains unnamed. Melanie, a woman unlucky in love, works in a fish 'n chip shop. This isolated landscape is host to Perfect Strangers, a psychological thriller played out between two main characters.
The eye of a full moon hangs in the sky over a dark moody landscape on the West Coast of New Zealand. 'Perfect Strangers' is aces in all technical departments, handsomely photographed in Scope by Alun Bollinger and with a soundtrack that effectively conveys tension and shifts in mood. As the third participant in what is virtually a three-handed romance - albeit a very strange one - Tobeck is extremely effective, successfully transforming what at first seems to be a boozy, uncouth loudmouth into a more rounded character.
Pic ends with an epilogue which draws together all the strands and moods of the film.īlake is sensational as the woman who proves to be a survivor, while Neill brings his customary charm, plus a dash of menace, to the role of the obsessive would-be lover. Several twists and turns follow, including the re-introduction of Bill (Joel Tobeck), who was briefly seen in the bar. Almost immediately she realizes that, if he dies, she has no way of getting off the island, so she sets about helping staunch the blood. Next, in the first of several unsettling reverses, Melanie turns the tables on the man, stabbing him in the stomach with a cooking knife. When she scoffs at him, things turn nasty.
He reveals that he knows all about her life and, fancying himself a Prince Charming, wants to 'rescue' her. Though she's concerned about not showing up at work, she allows the man to prepare a candlelit dinner for her.Īlthough Melanie is sexually willing, the man refuses to go to bed with her, insisting that she love him and marry him. She awakens to find they are at sea, heading for a small island where the man apparently owns a small cabin. Opting to go back to his place, Melanie is surprised when the stranger takes her to a boat, where he offers her champagne before she falls asleep. Lonely and unfulfilled, she drunkenly allows herself to be picked up by a handsome stranger (Neill) whose name she never discovers. Melanie (Blake) lives alone, works in a fish and chips shop in a small city and spends her nights in bars where she and her girlfriends (Robyn Malcolm, Madeleine Sami) regularly pick up men. Both elements resurface here, but in a fresh, updated approach. Wrong' (1984), a supernatural yarn in which a woman was menaced by a mysterious man. Thematically, 'Strangers' has links to Preston's accomplished first feature, 'Mr. Centring on another fine performance from Rachael Blake, the Aussie actress in 'Lantana,' and featuring an enigmatic turn by Sam Neill (in his first Kiwi based film since 'The Piano' 10 years ago), Gaylene Preston's generally taut and well directed pic is her best work in film to date and should result in solid business in Australasia with every chance for arthouse and ancillary in other territories. A woman kidnapped by a secret admirer turns the tables on her captor with unexpected results in 'Perfect Strangers,' an intriguing, virtually unclassifiable romantic thriller fantasy.