Talented Australian director Thomas M. Wright tackles another true story of befriending the devil. Who knew that undercover police operations worked, or even could work, like the ones seen in "The Stranger"? Based on Mr. Big's sprawling ruse that brought a notorious Australian kidnapper to justice, this mysterious and low-key thriller takes audiences into the same ruse used to catch the culprit, focusing on psychology rather than procedure in its riveting tale of a very unusual criminal. research. The case echoes Denis Villeneuve's "Prisoners" at times, minus the twisted payoff of a genre film, which will limit commercial prospects beyond Oz's shores.
With a tortured performance by star-producer Joel Edgerton at its core, this second film from the talented actor-turned-director Thomas M. Wright is as much about befriending the devil as his fantastic 2018 debut, "Acute Misfortune." Premiering at Un Certain Regard in Cannes, “The Stranger” confirms that Wright has arrived, even if the treatment of him sometimes feels more oblique and self-consciously artistic than the material demands.
Almost everyone in Australia knows about the case of Daniel Morcombe, the 13-year-old boy who disappeared from a bus stop in Queensland. Like "Nitram" in last year's Cannes competition about the country's worst mass shooting, downplaying the crime itself is a way of depriving the real-world perpetrator of the toxic brand of tabloid celebrity that the media and American movies so often award evildoers. But the tactic does not erase the evil itself, while non-Australian audiences may be left somewhat confused by the omission of key information.
Director: Thomas M. Wright
Writer: Thomas M. Wright
Stars: Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris, Ewen Leslie
Here, for example, Wright never reveals how the police identified "Henry" (Sean Harris) as the prime suspect in a nationwide manhunt. As far as we're concerned, he's just a tired working-class drifter we meet on the bus at the same time a guy named Paul (Steve Mouzakis) does. These two travelers hit it off and then go out for a drink. Paul tells Henry that he has a lead on a job and, realizing that he might not be entirely legal, Henry quickly volunteers: "I don't do violence."
Turns out Wright doesn't either. The director resists the urge to show whatever darkness Henry is hiding, working instead to suggest the unknowability of another man's soul. Ergo, “The Stranger” becomes an exercise in humor, as the characters tend to be seen in the shadows, from a distance or with their backs to the camera, while poker face expressions mask their emotions.
A few scenes later, the point of view of the film, far from being exploitative, changes drastically, from Henry to the tough, bearded guy, another stranger (Edgerton), this one named Mark, who picks him up for work the next day. At this point, viewers are still getting their bearings, letting their imaginations run wild based on limited information. “Trust Mark,” Paul tells Henry. "If you're honest with these guys, they'll take care of you." Trust is a key theme in "The Stranger."
Edgerton has played criminals before, of course, perhaps most memorably in 2010's "Animal Kingdom," and here, we're invited to wonder what kind of man his character is. Turns out he's not at all the one the movie first suggests. Mark is decent, but not without his own demons. The film follows him home... to his child, whom Mark has been raising alone. Turns out he's an undercover cop who spends his days embedded in some sort of mob-like organization. It's not easy to get rid of that personality when he's off the clock, like he really is off the clock, so he unknowingly takes it out on his son.
Meanwhile, his job is to gain Henry's trust, extract a confession from him. Everything else is a lie, an elaborate farce to trap Henry, who is not Henry at all, but a man named Peter Worley. But how do you get a man who doesn't take his own guilt to vent his conscience to a man he barely knows? This review has already said more than it should about the secrets of "The Stranger", which are better discovered as they unfold. The shock will inevitably be diluted for those who don't know the backstory of the Morcombe case, as Sean Harris, the wild-eyed English actor who plays Henry/Peter, seems like a sympathetic character at first.
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