The Comfort of Strangers

"The Comfort of Strangers" sounds superb on paper. Ian McEwan's brilliantly devastating and profoundly disturbing novella adapted by the genius that is Harold Pinter, directed by the excellent Paul Schrader, scored by Angelo Badalamenti, and starring what is essentially a dream cast absolutely perfect for the material. Yet it has a mediocre reputation at best so when I settled down for the viewing I was hopeful but had low expectations.

Pinter and Schrader handled two things poorly here- the ending, and the introduction of Christopher Walken's character, Robert. I'm not usually too concerned with faithfulness to the source material but what McEwan did with both aspects in the novella definitely did not require any sort of alteration. McEwan plays with the comfort level of the audience and characters more than Pinter does, causing the story to be even more sinister and disturbing as it develops. Pinter begins the film with a voice-over narration by Robert and we see Robert in flashes well before meets Colin and Mary and takes them to his bar. In short, we are told explicitly that Robert is a villain from the opening of the film, and Pinter also lets him take a bit too much screen time away from Colin and Mary. Walken is excellent in the role, however. The ending, while disturbing and unforgettable in the novella, is a predictable and simple conclusion on film. There's also one or two things that happened during the climactic scene that don't make sense at all within the narrative of the film and which did make sense in McEwan's book. Another questionable alteration.

Other than those faults "The Comfort of Strangers" is an absolutely tremendous and amazingly involving film with a brilliant script by Pinter which allows for more nuanced characters and a different approach than McEwan's novella featured, and superb work by Paul Schrader as director, who uses Venice brilliantly her to create mood and ambiance and certainly shoots the film very, very well, with one scene, where Robert is discussing his relationship with his father and sisters with Colin and Mary in the bar which is shot stunningly well. I won't give away Schrader's use of imagery here but it is such a well-crafted scene that the version in my head of the scene seemed terrible in comparison. The film is also shot exceptionally well by Dante Spinotti, a quality cinematographer famed for his work on films like "Heat" and "L.A. Confidential" among others.

Complimenting Schrader's work, which is probably his most impressive outside "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters", and at times superior to that, is one of Angelo Badalamenti's most memorable and distinctive scores. I actually had Rupert Everett in mind for Colin well before I even knew this film existed and he didn't disappoint at all in the role. Natasha Richardson was out of left field for me but the casting worked spectacularly well here, and it goes without saying that Helen Mirren is superb as Robert's wife Caroline. Mirren's Canadian accent is spot-on as well.

"The Comfort of Strangers" is significantly less heady than its prose version, choosing to function as a thriller with some thematic preoccupations instead. What is surprising about this film is just how well it works as a thriller. The novella thrives on an atmosphere of tense, sinister unease but much of that is derived from Colin and Mary's relationship rather than any plot mechanics. This film is more a traditional thriller but it is tremendously tense, involving, and exciting from start to finish. A quality film, one of Schrader's best as director and some of Pinter's finest film work.

9/10

This Paul Shrader movie is a 'must see' for anyone who's enjoyed 'Don't look now' by Nicholas Roeg. Once again we're back in Venice where decadence, decay and danger seem to lurk in every ill-lit corner. Just barely hiding from our eyes, but omni-present in the atmosphere.

We see Colin and Mary, a not-so-young and not-so-happy couple that have come back to Venice to decide whether or not to continue their relationship. The only plausible question to that answer seems to be a sound NO, until they meet Robert and Helen, an older couple living in a palazzo at the Grand Canal. Robert and Helen are weird, to say the least. Their marriage being a perverted mixture of violence and lust. Robert (Christopher Walken) could be a character from a James Purdy novel: a closeted mucho macho gay man who can only satisfy his need to be physically close to another man through violence. Masochistic Helen is not at all the victim she seems to be.

But who are the real perverts here? The clearly kinky older couple or their younger 'friends', that can't seem to stop having sex after their unsettling encounters? No need to tell that there can be no happy ending to this tale.

The Comfort of Strangers is a work of art. The chilling atmosphere is tangible, the characters are very convincing, the dialogue by Harold Pinter is multi-layered and the plot is slowly moving to its inevitable conclusion without the interference of a weak-hearted writer.

It makes you think about the million different methods people use to keep their lovelives alive. The movie also is a very brutal way of saying that nothing in life comes for free. By exaggerating the price Colin and Mary have to pay, Shrader seems to make us want to think about the more ordinary prices we pay in matters of fidelity, lust and love.

The best way to approach Paul Schrader's stylish but unsettling new film is without any knowledge of the (admittedly slim) plot, involving two innocents abroad and their fateful encounter in decadent Venice with a local couple whose Old World manners hide a malignant obsession. This isn't the romantic Venice of many a travel guide, but a dark and ominous maze of Byzantine alleys and dead end streets, and Schrader gives the city a wonderfully rich and gritty sense of after-hours entropy. Harold Pinter's screenplay is likewise (and typically) indirect, but the combination of an incredibly dense and evocative mood with the author's teasing lack of narrative helps to create a feeling of almost unspeakable dread. The film is certainly an acquired taste: perverse and pretentious in the old-fashioned European art house tradition (and, at times, oddly and inappropriately comic), but the effect can be disturbing to viewers caught in the right frame of mind.

This is one of those movies like "Mommie Dearest" that, after the first viewing, you're not sure that you could have possibly seen what you think you saw. It's so over the top that you need to shower afterward. And then, for some twisted reason, you watch it again and you start to like it. Everything about it is preposterous (though, Venice looks cool). Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett play, perhaps, the dullest couple to ever grace the screen. It is impossible to care about, or even understand, the emotional quandary they're going through. Helen Mirren is completely insane, but nothing can prepare you for the vintage, bravura Walken performance. His monologue about his father (that he delivers more than once in a dubious Italian accent) is a zenith in the Hammy Hall of Fame. Seek out someone else that has seen it and recite that monologue to each other in a bad Italian dialect and you will seldom in your life laugh harder. Rent (or buy, as I have) quickly and brace yourself.

Let's think how to put together the all-star team of menace.

We'd have Paul Shrader direct, and he'd never shoot a centered, straight-on angle. The movie would be filled with nearly empty frames, where the actors can be seen only far off to the side, and the scenes would begin with tracking shots through an alley to the characters, as if from a stalker's P.O.V. Doors and windows would open and close near our protagonists, manipulated by unseen hands, for unspoken reasons.

We'd have Harold Pinter write the screenplay, and every line would be pregnant with vague menace. The character's actions would be filled with unexplainable and unexplained malice. People would repeat with gravitas lines that don't seem important. People would tell awful stories about their youth and their excessively stern parents.

We'd locate it in Venice at night, where every corner seems to turn into a deserted and foggy dead end, every street is a waterfront, and there are as many ghosts and echoes as living people.

We'd star Christopher Walken.

Sorry, guys, it's already been done. This is a spooky, creepy movie, well presented by the all-star team. I really found only one flaw. The menace was not left unspoken and threatening. The movie ends with people doing explicit and unspeakably awful things for no reason.

It's one strange movie. Great use of Venice as the backdrop for the story. It is a masterpiece in its own Euro-noir genre. I liked it a lot, but don't expect a typical cinema experience, or a happy ending.