Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: WE STRANGERS [South By Southwest Film Festival 2024 - Austin, Texas]
The use of perspective and perception to fuel ambition and get ahead is about balance in many ways. "We Strangers" [Narrative Feature Competition] follows Rayelle Martin (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), a woman cleaning houses and places but knowing opportunities when she sees one. The texture of this woman being different faces in ways to different people (including as a would-be psychic) fuels her actions, first to a doctor wanting her to clean her house to his wife (who thinks she wants to be someone she is not) to a next door neighbor who is a bundle of nerves who wants to be something but not sure what she is doing about it. Meanwhile Rayelle just wants to get by but doesn't quite think through juggling all these plans in the air. The daughter of the doctor gets her scam but has her own scam going creating a tit-for-tat situation. Sarah Goldberg and Maria Dizzia play the repective wives each with their own agendas but own perception. The interesting thing in many spots is that it is not clear if they are playing along, leaning in because they are bored and actually believing something of what they are hearing.
Anu Valia writes and directs this Gary, Indiana story. She grew up there before seemingly moving to New York so that transmutation and perspective of life likely fuel this perception where certain intelligent people could mold the system in certain ways if they thought it through. That said, reality, at least for Rayelle, always comes back to bear because of her responsibilities to her mother and child care for her best friend which sounds like her bread and butter. The aspect of a short term fix for a long term problem only exaserbates her situation but she stays strong even after she is accused simply because the ladies and the gentlemen in question employing her simply don't want to see what is right in front of them. The satire in its context is basic but the take away is a little more muddy as Ratyelle keeps to her guns in thumbing her nose at the system (albeit subtly) while looking for the next opportunity. As a directorial debut, it has some specific strong performances though the claity of the endgame meanders a bit. B
By Tim Wassberg
