Perfect Strangers

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

Perfect Strangers, New Zealand, 2003

Director/producer/writer: Gaylene Preston
Producer: Robin Laing
Associate producer: Jay Cassells
Cinematographer: Alun Bollinger
Production designer: Joe Bleakley
Editor: John Gilbert
Costume designer: Helen Bollinger

With: Sam Neill (Man), Rachael Blake (Melanie), Joel Tobeck (Bill), Robyn Malcolm (Aileen), Madeleine Sami (Andrea), Paul Glover (Jim)

35mm, 96 minutes, M–low level violence

“New Zealand director Gaylene Preston has been acclaimed as one of the country’s finest filmmakers since her first film, the fantasy/comedy/thriller, Mr. Wrong, in 1984. Since then she has made the feature film Ruby and Rata (1990), the miniseries Bread and Roses (1994), and the feature documentary War Stories Our Mothers Never Told Us (1995), as well as directing and producing a substantial number of other documentaries. She was appointed New Zealand’s first Filmmaker Laureate in 2001 and she is also an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for filmmaking. Preston has a reputation for being an unorthodox feminist and individualist, a strong woman who was raised on the dark, stormy West Coast of New Zealand, the setting for her latest film, Perfect Strangers, which is her second filmic foray into the world of the macabre. The film is distinctively New Zealand in its setting and characters while drawing on universally recognizable motifs and themes of fairy tale, horror, fantasy, and insights about human psychology.

The story is played out between two main characters. Melanie, a woman unlucky in love, who works in a fish ‘n’ chips shop, is enticed away one night to an island by a ‘perfect stranger,’ the Man, who remains unnamed. With his Italian shoes and ‘cultured’ background, the dark, mysterious stranger is a romantic, tempting opposite for her, far from her experience of life and the rough blokes of the coast who hunt, shoot, fish, and fart in bed. Bill, a local hunter whom Melanie once dated and rejected, later becomes the third character in an entrapping triangle… Perfect Strangers requires tolerance for ambiguity.

Preston challenges stereotyped notions of gender, fairy-tale romance, and characterization. She uses the kind of gritty realism and grotesque, outsized imagery often found in dream and fairy tale. The effect is comic, macabre, and, at times, confusing. But this is often the nature of madness. Candle-lit baths, knives, flimsy feminine clothing, a wheelbarrow, a freezer, and a tattooed cheek appear in situations that both disturb and at times amuse.

Rich in references and nuances, Perfect Strangers also throws light into a rather isolated region of the country and into a corner of the New Zealand psyche, eliciting further exploration and reflection about ideas of wholeness, psychological and social awareness, and the roles that internal images of masculinity and femininity play in relationships.

Perfect Strangers plays around with the boundaries of inner and outer realities and the tensions between different ways of seeing—between interior (subjective, imagined) reality and exterior (concrete, factual data) reality…” — Helen Frances, Cineaste, Fall 2005

“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. Centering 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 picture is her best work in film to date ... Thematically, Strangers has links to Preston's accomplished first feature, Mr. Wrong (1984), a supernatural yarn in which a woman was menaced by a mysterious man. Both elements resurface here, but in a fresh, updated approach. Melanie lives alone, works in a fish and chips shop in a small city and spends her nights in bars where she and her girlfriends regularly pick up men. Lonely and unfulfilled, she drunkenly allows herself to be picked up by a handsome stranger whose name she never discovers. 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. She awakens to find they are at sea, heading for a small island where the man apparently owns a small cabin. Though she's concerned about not showing up at work, she allows the man to prepare a candlelit dinner for her. Although Melanie is sexually willing, the man refuses to go to bed with her, insisting that she love him and marry him. He reveals that he knows all about her life and, fancying himself a Prince Charming, wants to "rescue" her. When she scoffs at him, things turn nasty. Next, in the first of several unsettling reverses, Melanie turns the tables on the man, stabbing him in the stomach with a cooking knife. 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. Several twists and turns follow, including the re-introduction of Bill, who was briefly seen in the bar. The film ends with an epilogue which draws together all the strands and moods of the film. Blake 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. 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. 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.” — David Stratton, Variety, July 28, 2003

“Never before have the promos for a movie been so misleading. The trailer and blurb for Perfect Strangers is a good description of probably the first 20 minutes of the movie. This is a cunning move that works in its favour, as by billing the movie as a straight kidnap cum psychological thriller, Gaylene Preston is able to brilliantly subvert audience expectations. Perfect Strangers is far from a horror movie, it is a daring and brilliantly intense psychological love story – which will linger in your mind for many days and screams out for repeated viewing. The movie starts in a fish and chip store, where three ladies giggle and chatter in anticipation of a night on the town in small town New Zealand. They hit the pub, hit the drinks, look for boys. It’s late, Melanie reaches for a lighter only to have her cigarette lit by a tall, dark stranger. He’s been to Italy. She’s impressed. They return to his boat where Melanie passes out drunk – waking up in the middle of the ocean halfway out to his island getaway. He says he loves her, won’t let her leave – they struggle. She stabs him and from this point on, leave all your expectations aside! Gaylene Preston directs with a masterful hand, capturing the evolving relationship between Melanie and her perfect stranger brilliantly – Melanie’s descent into madness is portrayed with frightening realism. Sam Neill plays his sinister stranger effortlessly – intense and frightening one moment, soft and tender the next. Director Gaylene Preston is the star though – directing the movie through its numerous twists and turns, it seems at times that she is toying with the audience... Perfect Strangers is a head–spinner of a movie, a twisted romance. Gone are the days when people could say this was ‘pretty good for a New Zealand movie’ – Gaylene Preston has created a film that leaves a lot of its Hollywood counterparts for dead.” — James Robinson, Salient, issue one 2004

Screenings: Perfect Strangers screened on 2 April 2008 as part of the Big Sky: Empty Land selection of films; and on 18 April 2007 honouring Gaylene Preston in the Arts Foundation Laureates season