Times of Trouble for Anne Hathaway and Michaela Cole in David Lowery’s Mother Mary

MOTHER MARY
(David Lowery, USA, 2026, 112 minutes) 

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
–Lennon-McCartney (mostly McCartney), "Let It Be" (1970)

Mother Mary, David Lowery's third for the studio, plays like a parody of an A24 film. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it isn't a great one either. 

Lowery's latest is stylish as hell, but the writer/director/editor mistakes ponderousness for intensity and repetition for incantation. He's played with these elements before, but to more successful effect, particularly in 2021's The Green Knight, his mesmerizing adaptation of a 14-century text. 

Though it's something new for him, since pop stars aren't his usual purview, his eighth feature feels like a mashup of other films in which woman is pitted against woman and bodies are pushed to the limit, especially Showgirls, The Black Swan, The Neon Demon, and Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria remake.

Left: Oscar winner Natalie Portman in Darren Aronofsky's The Black Swan

Lowery would also appear to have some familiarity with Peter Strickland's The Duke of Burgundy, which depicts a world without men, and In Fabric, which revolves around a red dress with a rather insidious mind of its own (there are male dancers in Mother Mary, but they don't say a word). 

Anne Hathaway plays the title character, an American pop star eager to make a dazzling return to the stage after an unfortunate incident in the recent past, and Michaela Cole plays Brit Sam Anselm, her former costume designer. For reasons never made clear, the performer abandoned the designer en route to superstardom. Sam was the friend and collaborator who knew her best, so this seems like a self-defeating move on Mother Mary's part, but that's Lowery's point: along the way, she lost herself. 

Fair enough, but who is she, really? Hathaway gives it her all, but the part is woefully underwritten. It doesn't help that she's limited to a stage name--as if she never had a real one--while Sam has the advantage of authenticity. 

Nor does Lowery do as much with all the Catholic iconography as he could. The Biblical name recalls Madonna, who was raised Catholic--as was Lady Gaga--and there's also a halo headpiece and a palm wound, but there's no talk of religion. Nor is there any information about her background, relationship status, or sexual orientation. I believe it's intentional, but that doesn't mean it adds up.

Mother Mary is, for instance, curiously sexless. Granted, some pop star films, like Performance and Pink Floyd - The Wall, take that kind of thing pretty far--especially where drugged-out male stars and female groupies are concerned--but these ladies might as well be asexual. Sam's dialogue suggests that she and Mother Mary once had a thing, or felt a certain attraction, but who's to say. With her cutting remarks, which grow tiring after a while, Sam comes across as a spurned lover, but the lack of  sexual tension between the two suggests that any relationship was in her head. 

Instead, Lowery posits that the two have a supernatural connection represented by--wait for it--a red dress. When "The Red Woman," as he terms it, makes her debut crumpled up at the foot of Sam's bed, she recalls the creature in Possession, an inspiration the filmmaker has confirmed, except the reference diminishes his film by comparison, though those unfamiliar with Żuławski's baroque monsterpiece may feel otherwise.

It's a cliché that pop stars abandon the people who helped to make them famous, and it really happens--and will keep happening as long as we have pop stars--but the trick is to do something intriguing with the concept. Unfortunately, there's too much buildup here, and not enough payoff.

Once Lowery establishes that Mother Mary and Sam have a psychic bond, there's nowhere left to go. Though he incorporates elements of self-destructive body horror, which may be strictly metaphorical, the ending suggests that it's better to accept your demons than to deny them.

Good idea in theory, but after Sam's cruel words and Mother Mary's red-rimmed regrets, I expected more than the equivalent of a pep talk. I also expected more from Coel and Hathaway, but they're boxed in by one-note characters. From start to finish, Sam is bitter and Mother Mary is contrite.

The designer's unwillingness to accept the singer's apologies, which seem sincere, makes her less sympathetic as the film goes on--she twists the knife further by insisting she never listened to Mother Mary's music--not least since she appears to have done just fine on her own. Her connection to a superstar likely helped her to secure seed funding and to attract deep-pocketed clients. She's also surrounded by other self-possessed women, like Hilda (Euphoria's Hunter Schafer), her attentive and efficient assistant. Sam isn't as isolated as Mother Mary, but for whatever reason, she's just as lonely.

It's also unfortunate that the other performers have so little to do; I found it particularly disappointing vis-à-vis Sian Clifford, such a fine foil for Phoebe Waller-Bridge on Fleabag and a star of her own in the upcoming Lady.

Granted, FKA twigs, who contributed a song--"My Mouth Is Lonely for You"--has one showy scene where she conjures up a spirit before disappearing, but model Kaia Gerber mostly just stands around looking like a model.

If the entire film took place in Sam's under-lit, barn-like atelier, it might be an unbearable slog, but Lowery frequently cuts away to scenes of Mother Mary in concert, and Hathaway impresses with her solid singing, sure-footed dancing–particularly in the expressive sequence in which Sam commands her to enact the choreography for "Spooky Action" in silence–and enviably-toned legs. (Costume designer Bina Daigeler, a favorite of Pedro Almodóvar, clearly took cues from Taylor Swift's leg-lengthening stage looks.)

The other songs, written and produced by Charli xcx and Jack Antonoff, aren't the most memorable, but they go down easy, and the album, Mother Mary: Greatest Hits, holds up fine when divorced from the outré visuals. 

After the triumph of Steven Soderbergh's The Christophers, I was looking forward to watching Michaela Cole go head to head with another locked-in performer, but Mother Mary doesn't strike the same sparks. It's more of an audiovisual feast with a few eye-catching frocks, but the broad-strokes characterizations leave the whole thing feeling a little threadbare.

Mother Mary opens on Thurs, April 23, nationwide and in the Seattle area at AMC and Regal theaters. Images from A24 via Indiewire (Anne Hathaway), Fox Searchlight Pictures / The Hollywood Reporter (Natalie Portman), Phantasmag (Hathaway and Michaela Cole), Inverse (Coel with "The Red Woman"), and Eric Zachanowich via AP / Hartford Courant (Coel).  

Good Boy and Other House Pets in Horror: Purrs, Barks, Growls--and Deadly Attacks

Here's the most recent list I compiled for Crypticon. 

As with most previous lists, I started with a preliminary list before turning to social media to crowd-source for more. I'm grateful to everyone who contributed suggestions.

What counts: cats, dogs, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, rabbits, rats, etc.

What doesn't: chickens, cows, horses, pigs, and other farm animals. 

What about invertebrates? Furry mammals preferred! 

Previous: Canadian, Spanish and French horror, and the horror western.

A- B

Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979) 

Jonesy the cat (pictured above)

Alligator (Lewis Teague, 1980) 

Bad Moon (Eric Red, 1996) 

Baxter (Jérôme Boivin, 1989) 

Ben (Phil Karlson, 1972) 

Features Michael Jackson's most touching love song!

The Beyond (Lucio Fulci, 1981)

The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) 

The lovebirds! 

The Black Cat (Lucio Fulci, 1980) 

Blood Glacier / Blutgletscher, Glazius (Marvin Kren, Austrian, 2013)

C-F

The Cat (Lam Nai-Choi, 1982) 

Cat's Eye (Lewis Teague, 1985) 

Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942)

Critters (Stephen Herek, 1986)

Cujo (Lewis Teague, 1983) 

Based on the 1981 Stephen King novel 

The Curse of the Cat People (Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise, 1944) 

Dogs (Burt Brinckerhoff, 1977) 

Eye of the Cat (David Lowell Rich, 1969)

Frankenweenie (Tim Burton, animated, 2012)

G-I

The Gate (Tibor Takács, 1987) 

Good Boy (Ben Leonberg, 2025) 

Indy, the golden retriever (pictured above right)

Gremlins (Joe Dante, 1984) 

The Hidden (Jack Sholder, 1987) 

The Hills Have Eyes (Wes Craven, 1977)

The Hills Have Eyes (Alejandro Aja, remake, 2006)

The Hills Have Eyes Part II (Wes Craven, 1985) 

House / Hausu (Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, 1977) 

I Am Legend (Francis Lawrence, 2007)

If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (Mary Bronstein, 2025) 

The hamster! 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman, 1978)

K-O

Kuroneko (Kaneto Shindo, 1968) 

Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008) 

Weird CGI cat attack 

Lost Boys (Joel Schumacher, 1987) 

Love and Monsters (Michael Matthews, 2020)

Monkey Shines (George Romero, 1988)

Night of the Lepus (William F. Claxton, 1972)

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (Jack Sholder, 1985)

Of Unknown Origin (George Pan Cosmatos, 1983)

P-R

The Pack (Robert Clouse, 1977) 

The Pack (Nick Robertson, not a remake, 2015) 

Pet Sematary (Mary Lambert, original, 1989) 

Pet Sematary (Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer, remake, 2019)

Based on the 1983 Stephen King novel 

The Plague Dogs (Martin Rosen, animated, 1982) 

Poltergeist (Tobe Hooper, 1982)

Primate (Johannes Roberts, 2025) 

A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnoski, 2024)

Frodo that cat (played by Schnitzel and Nico)

Re-Animator (Stuart Gordon, 1985)

Roar (Noell Marshall, 1981)

S-T

The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991) 

Darla, Buffalo Bill’s Bichon Frisé

Sleepwalkers (Mick Garris, 1992) 

Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1978) 

Albert, the blind pianist's German Shepherd 

Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (John Harrison, 1990)

David Johansen fights a cat!

They Only Kill Their Masters (James Goldstone, 1972) 

The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982) 

The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (Eli Craig, 2010)

V-Z

The Voices (Marjane Satrapi, 2014) 

White God (Kornél Mundruczó, Hungarian, 2014) 

Willard (Daniel Mann, 1971)

Ben, the rat, pictured above left with Bruce Davison as Willard

The Crypticon Seattle panel Good Boy! (Pets in Horror) takes place on Sat, May 2, at 3pm with moderator Brien Gorham and panelists Todd Johnston, Eric Li, and me. Click here for tickets and more information.

Images from Bloody Disgusting (Sigourney Weaver with Jonesy in Alien), The Guardian (Indy in Good Boy), and the IMDb (Willard poster).

When I Paint My Masterpiece: Steven Soderbergh's Sly Two-Hander The Christophers

THE CHRISTOPHERS
(Steven Soderbergh, 2025, UK, 100 minutes) 

Someday, everything is gonna be diff’rent
When I paint my masterpiece
–Bob Dylan (1971) 

The Christophers is a film about art and commerce, and the ways in which they're at cross purposes. It's also Steven Soderbergh's second London film in a row after last year's stylish Black Bag with Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as married intelligence officers, and the city suits him well. 

Granted, the two films don't have much in common, other than that they aim to keep you guessing from start to finish, except the former is a romantic thriller, in the vein of 1998's Out of Sight, whereas The Christophers isn't a thriller at all, though it doesn't lack for low-key thrills. 

Lori Butler (Michaela Cole, whose sculptural face is a work of art), an exacting woman in her thirties, works as a food cart vendor. She isn't miserable necessarily, but her life hasn't turned out the way she imagined. 

One day, from out of the blue, she gets a call from a former art school classmate with an offer she can't refuse--even if it makes her queasy. 

Sallie (Baby Reindeer's Jessica Gunning) and her brother, Barnaby (a perfectly-cast James Corden in a ridiculous patchwork shirt), would like her to complete The Christophers, their elderly father's famously unfinished third series of paintings under that name. Completed canvases in the previous series have sold exceptionally well, and this one will be worth even more after he kicks the bucket. They describe it as a restoration job--Lori has a sideline in art restoration--except they're really asking her to engage in forgery. They figure she won't mind, since he once humiliated her in public. 

Their father, Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen in top form) is retired and in declining health, so they plan to pass Lori off as an assistant, so she can gain access to The Christophers and finish them using his original paints and brushes. They neglect to tell her that he can't stand them, and considering that they see him primarily as a flesh-and-blood ATM machine, it isn't hard to see why (to be fair, he also appears to have been a pretty lousy father). 

While Lori lives in shared housing with other struggling artists, Julian lives in two side-by-side walk-ups in Fitzrovia filled with art and the detritus of a long life. When they first meet, he doesn't appear to remember her from their long-ago encounter. In fact, it's unclear whether he's eccentric or suffering from dementia. He's sharp in some ways, less so in others. 

Lori makes herself useful, though she finds him exhausting. He's so verbose and inappropriately revealing, she can't get a word in edgewise, though she soaks up every detail. The actors generate a palpable friction, while the characters have only their passion for art in common. That's about it. The tension isn't about age or race, but sensibility, since she's a 21st-century woman, while he clings to the politically-incorrect norms of the past.

In a way, though, they're both acting. As Ed Solomon's twisty screenplay continues, he doles out more and more details about two people who aren't as different from each other as they at first appear. Not least because Julian isn't as oblivious as he seems; he's also convinced that his kids had an ulterior motive in hiring Lori. He's not sure what it is, but he suspects that it involves The Christophers, so when he asks her to burn them in the firepit, it's hard to tell if he's testing her--to see if she'll resist--or whether he simply wants them out of his life for reasons that will be revealed later. 

In a manner of speaking, the film is a cat and mouse game, because Lori and Julian have clashing interests and intentions, though they both prove pretty proficient at subterfuge. It's one of the film’s biggest strengths: they're intelligent people, and Solomon, who wrote Soderbergh's terrific Detroit gangster picture No Sudden Move, assumes you are, too. Granted, he's also known for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Men in Black, and there's plenty of snap and crackle to the screwball-adjacent dialogue. 

Solomon also doesn't believe in giving everything away. Julian had a wife and children at a time when many gay men, even those in London's artistic demimonde, lived outwardly as heterosexuals (prior to 1967's Sexual Offences Act, homosexuality was essentially illegal in the UK). He considers it a badge of pride that he was bisexual "when it actually cost you something," though I suspect he was as "bisexual" as Elton John in the 1970s, i.e. not very. We never find out Lori's sexual orientation. And nor does it matter. 

Lori's feelings about art matter more, and over the years, she went from being a Julian admirer to a critic as he squandered his talent, but at least he had some, whereas she specializes in convincingly copying other artists. It's a skill to be sure, but it isn't exactly art--not even by her own standards.  

For all their differences, though, they're lonely in their own unique ways, but not enough to admit that they would rather have a worthy opponent with whom to spar than an assortment of unworthies. If they never become friends in the conventional sense, they become something just as valuable. 

Wikipedia describes The Christophers as a black comedy. I wouldn't, though the back-and-forth is frequently quite funny, and rarely in an obvious way. Sometimes Coel, who plays a fairly humorless character, gets a laugh simply by the way Lori reacts--or doesn't react--to her employer's shameless proclamations and his children's slippery prevarications. Her performance here is nothing like the work she did in her brightly-hued council estate comedy Chewing Gum, though never as dark as anything in I May Destroy You, her Emmy Award-winning exploration into life after sexual assault. 

As different as those characters and those projects were, I would imagine Coel wrote them to her strengths–Chewing Gum was an extension of her 2012 one-woman play–whereas in the case of The Christophers, she excels as a once-promising artist stuck in as much of a rut as her 86-year-old sort-of mentor, though I don't believe Solomon wrote the role with her in mind.*

And I don't know if he wrote Julian with Ian McKellen in mind, but it's hard to imagine anyone else in the role, since he gets to use most every color in his considerable paintbox. It's been over a decade since I last saw him on the screen--in Bill Condon's touching Mr. Holmes--so he looks older than I remember, but there's a delightful sequence towards the end in which he rubs his hands together and skips about with glee, and I was reminded that he once appeared as a jaunty vampire in a Pet Shop Boys video.  

By the end of the film, which never feels too stagey thanks to Soderbergh's deft direction and fluid camera work--as alter ego Peter Andrews--I was reminded of two other British two-handers, Harold Pinter's adaptation of Robin Maugham's The Servant and Ronald Harwood's The Dresser, even if this relationship isn't quite that antagonistic, though similar differentials are at play involving income, status, and ability (and McKellen appeared with Anthony Hopkins in Richard Eyre's BBC version of The Dresser in 2015).   

The Christophers, however, isn't a tragedy. Sometimes a younger person can serve as a mentor or teacher as effectively as an older one, and sometimes the most challenging relationships can prove the most beneficial; the kind in which another person forces you to face the thing you least want to face--the thing you most need to face--and that will set you free in the end.

Once upon a time I assumed, like Lori, that I would become a professional artist. It didn't happen. I had bills to pay, and art wasn't going to get the job done. It doesn't happen for many people, but it made me particular about how art and artists are represented on screen, and Soderbergh's film, by way of Solomon's screenplay--as embodied by two terrific actors--is one of the best I've seen about the challenges and satisfactions of a life in art.

*According to this intervew, he did.  

The Christophers opens at AMC Alderwood Mall on Sun, April 12, and SIFF Cinema Uptown on Thurs, April 16. Images from Blex Media (Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel), Film Streams (Jessica Gunning and James Corden), First Showing (McKellen) and Rotten Tomatoes (McKellen and Coel).

The Stranger: François Ozon’s Beautiful Take on an Ugly Crime--and an Enigmatic Criminal

THE STRANGER / L'Étranger / الغريب 
(François Ozon, 2025, France, 122 minutes)

Standing on a beach
With a gun in my hand
Staring at the sea
Staring at the sand
–The Cure, "Killing an Arab" (1980)

Making a film out of Albert Camus' The Stranger is a bold move for any filmmaker, and François Ozon is also the first from France after adaptations by Turkish and Italian filmmakers, though it's not completely surprising that Italy's Luchino Visconti, a left-wing aesthete as fond of European literature as Ozon, gave it a go with a miscast Marcello Mastroianni in 1967. 

Camus' novella takes place in Algiers, and centers on Meursault, a Bartleby-like office worker who feels no remorse after murdering a native Algerian in cold blood--in Visconti's film, he's described as a shipping clerk--but he doesn't feel all that great about it either. The author doesn't even give the victim a name; we only know him as the Arab, as if that's all he was. 

The book is about the indifference of the universe, to be sure, but it's also about racism. Whether he cares or not, Meursault seems well aware that Arabs are second-class citizens. 

Ozon begins his elegant black and white version with a brief newsreel about Algiers under French rule. Camus, who was born to Algerian parents of European descent, published The Stranger in 1942--though he wrote it years before--and died in a car accident 18 years later. Though he spent most of his adult life in France, he didn't live to see Algeria win its freedom in 1962. Ozon, whose grandfather had ties to the country, was born five years later. 

After establishing Meursault's milieu, he introduces the young man (played by Summer of 85's Benjamin Voisin, who recalls Breathless-era Jean-Paul Belmondo from some angles) after he's brought in for questioning. He enters a holding cell filled with Arab men of various ages. When an older man asks about his crime, the sole white suspect states, "I killed an Arab."

Ozon then shows how we got here, but he's established who we're dealing with, except this isn't a murder mystery, and even the book's Meursault doesn't know exactly why he did what he did. He only knows that he did it.  

The story begins, in earnest, when he receives a telegram stating that his mother has died. 

In today's parlance, he might say, "It is what it is," but his non-reaction will come back to haunt him as he proceeds to go about his day. He smokes a cigarette, drinks a cup of coffee, shaves, gets dressed, and goes to work. People die every day, and his mother happened to be one of them, though he does put on a black arm band--at the insistence of a friend--which makes him seem more sympathetic than Camus's original conception. It also signals to the world that he has lost someone significant. 

Later that day, he takes a bus to his mother's retirement home to keep vigil beside her coffin and attend the funeral. The caretaker, a kindly elderly gentleman (Jean-Claude Bolle-Reddat), sets him up with more coffee, and they share a smoke. During his overnight stay, he finds that his mother had many friends and admirers. (At the trial, his acceptance of coffee with milk will also be used against him; a sign of Algeria's then-inflexible traditions, since only black coffee was considered acceptable while mourning.) 

If Meursault isn't sad, he isn't happy either; more like sanguine. Though I wouldn't describe The Stranger as autobiographical, Camus also lost his father, whom he never really knew, decades before his mother, but didn't attend her funeral because he died eight months before her, also in 1960

In the film, Meursault doesn't object to the Christian service, since it's what his mother would have wanted, even if her son--and the author who brought him to life--were atheists. Further, Ozon's By the Grace of God centers on men who had been sexually abused by a priest. Ozon was raised Catholic, but drifted away due to the Church's attitudes towards homosexuality. I don't know whether he's an atheist, but he's definitely not a Catholic. More troubling, since we all mourn at our own pace, is the way Meursault looks at his mother's physically frail, emotionally devastated male companion with disdain.  

Afterward, he returns to the city, where he reconnects with Marie (Rebecca Marder from Ozon's The Crime Is Mine and Sandrine Kiberlain's A Radiant Girl), a former typist at his firm, with whom he enjoys an afternoon swim and an evening comedy. There's a line in the film they see, 1938's The Schpountz, that's intended to be funny, though I don't know why. "All condemned men," exclaims Fernandel, "Will have their heads cut off!" Meursault doesn't laugh. Though Marie does. 

Other notable figures include Salamano (a grubby, touching Denis Lavant), a pensioner who has a love-hate relationship with his mangy mutt, and Raymond (Pierre Lottin from Ozon's When Fall Is Coming), a pimp who has a hate relationship with his Arab girlfriend, Djemila (Hajar Bouzaouit)--she's unnamed in the book--whose brother (Abderrahmane Dehkani) disapproves.

Meursault doesn't judge either man. As much as his radical honesty, his c'est la vie attitude ranks among his best and worst qualities. When the illiterate Raymond asks, he doesn't hesitate to write to Djemila on his behalf, despite the fact that it could lead to more abuse; further, he only has Raymond's word for it that she's been unfaithful. In the moment, Meursault prioritizes his friend's need, even though he would never raise a hand to a woman. 

If every character has a companion, each relationship is tainted--except possibly for his late mother's. 

When widower Salamano's spaniel disappears, for instance, he's bereft even though he spent all his time insulting and even kicking the poor thing. Meursault's relationship with Marie seems idyllic compared to Raymond's, except the love only flows one way. It's not that Marie isn't lovable, but that Meursault isn't capable of loving.

I recently came across a film review that describes Ozon's take on the character as neurodivergent, and although I can see why a writer in 2026 would say that, I don't see it that way. He is, instead, someone who is incapable of lying, no matter the cost. His very existence highlights the extent to which the world runs on lies. It is, in other words, an affront. 

Since the first hour is essentially a flashback, Ozon occasionally returns to Meursault's time in the cave-like holding cell, except it doesn't add much, other than to remind us that his halcyon days in the sun with Marie will soon come to an end. No more smoking, no more drinking, no more swimming. 

In the meantime, Raymond invites Meursault and Marie to join him for a beach-side rendezvous with another couple. Things are going splendidly until the three men run into Djemila's brother and another young man. A fight ensues, the brother slashes his arm, and the youths flee. 

Though Meursault wasn't involved in the scuffle, it makes a mark on him as surely as the gash on Raymond's arm. It isn't his problem, but he feels the need to finish what they started, so he sets out, with Raymond's gun, to track the men down. When he finds Djemila's brother, he stares at him in a way that indicates he finds him attractive--this is a François Ozon film after all--and shoots him dead. And almost immediately fires four more shots. 

Is Ozon suggesting that Meursault is a repressed homosexual? It's possible, though previous events contradict that reading. The quasi-sociopathic sensualist may not be capable of loving Marie, but he seems to genuinely enjoy sleeping with her. That's even more clear here than in the book, but with Ozon, who's to say: he has a knack for queering most every text. 

Left: Frantz, Ozon's other great black and white adaptation

Shots fired, the flashback ends, past becomes prologue, and guards move Meursault to a cell where he meets with a lawyer who warns that the muted response to his mother's death may be used against him. Tellingly, he seems less concerned about the death of the Arab. It's almost as if the murder were pretext for stopping The Man Who Cannot Lie. 

After all, the pied noir (European Algerians) of the time understood--and even excused--some forms of racism, but this was harder to comprehend. 

Ozon aptly captures the trial's potent mix of comedy and pathos, though it does feature one of the film's few false notes, and that's when Marie has a brief exchange with Djemila. It wasn't in the book, and doesn't need to be in the film, not least because it spells too much out. We already know, by looking at their faces, what the women are feeling. And that's enough. 

Though Meursault rejects the entreaties by a priest (played by Anatomy of a Fall's Swann Arlaud, who appeared in By the Grace of God), he won't take no for an answer, convinced that the convict is miserable, but in his way, he isn't. He committed a crime, he'll face punishment. He doesn't question this, and since he doesn't believe in God or sin, all the rest is noise. 

All told, Ozon's adaptation, which is beautifully shot by DP Manu Dacosse--a favorite of Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani--and scored by Atlantics' Fatima Al Qadiri, is likely the best we'll ever get of this tough and thorny book, though it's the rare deviation, including a brief epilogue, that works the least well.

The cast, however, is spectacular. Benjamin Voisin, so good in Summer of 85 and even more impressive in Xavier Giannoli's Balzac adaptation, Lost Illusions, doesn't put a foot wrong, though he's almost too good looking for the role. Camus never describes Meursault's appearance, and though I doubt he envisioned someone quite so handsome, it's almost a requirement in order to explain Marie's attraction and to stave off audience revulsion. 

In order to adapt the novella, Ozon sought approval from the author's daughter, Catherine Camus. About the film, she has stated, "A remarkable journey through my father's work, rendered with the utmost respect." 

Of the three adaptations to date, it has received the most acclaim, though we'll never know what the version with Alain Delon might have looked like, since Visconti wasn't able to pull it off. Then again, Jef Costello, the taciturn hit man he plays in Melville's 1967 Le Samouraï has Meursault-like qualities (and I don't think it's a complete coincidence that Voisin also recalls Delon in Purple Noon). Instead, Visconti cast Marcello Mastroianni, a fabulous actor, but not quite right for the role, and at 43, older than Camus intended. 

Voisin brings a certain ambiguity to Meursault that Mastroianni wasn't able to muster. The Frenchman's performance is so subtle that it's likely to be underrated, and at the 2026 César Awards, Pierre Lottin, also quite good, received the film's sole acting win. Nonetheless, Voisin's micro-expressions are ever-changing. His face is never a complete blank or mask, since he's always observing and processing, and only speaks when he has something to say. 

The one time Meursault acts without thinking, he does something terrible. Whether it's the glint of the Arab's switchblade, the oppressive heat, his repressed desire, a delayed reaction to his mother's death, or a combination of all of these things, he seals his fate by taking another man's life. 

I don't believe there's such a thing as a perfect film, not least when it comes to a landmark like The Stranger, but Francois Ozon's feel for the material, and especially the curious central character, comes through loud and clear, and I can't imagine a better version. It's truly one of the director's best.

The Stranger plays Bellevue's Cinemark Lincoln Square for one night only on Wed, April 8, and opens in Seattle on Fri, April 24, at SIFF Cinema Uptown. 

Images from Gaumont (Benjamin Voisin, Pierre Lotin, and Voisin with Rebecca Marder), The New Yorker (Albert Camus as seen by Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum), Amazon (cover of the 1989 edition of The Stranger), New Zealand International Film Festival (Pierre Niney and Paula Beer in Frantz), and Screen International (Voisin contemplates the void).