Perfect Strangers (4½ Stars)

I bought this film on Blu-ray this week because it was directed by Alex de la Iglesia. He's one of my favourite directors, and definitely my favourite European director. I'll buy any film that he makes without hesitation.

The film is almost a Kammerspiel. Most of it takes place in the dining room of Alfonso and Eva, a wealthy couple who live in Madrid. Alfonso is a plastic surgeon, Eva is a psychologist. They've invited a few friends round for dinner. To be precise, they've invited six people: two married couples, a single friend and his girlfriend. The girlfriend doesn't want to come, so it's seven people who sit down for dinner.

Eva complains that mobile phones alienate people. Everyone sits typing or talking on his phone while ignoring his friends. She suggests that they play a game. While they're eating they have to put their phones on the table. Any text messages or emails that arrive have to be read out loud. Any telephone calls have to be answered with the speaker on, so that everyone else can hear.

As the evening progresses the seven people, some of whom have been friends for 20 years, realise that they don't know one another at all.

My first impression when I watched the film was that Alex de la Iglesia is revisiting a theme that was the basis of his last film, "The Bar", in which eight strangers are trapped together in a sidewalk cafe/bar. Maybe that really was his intention, but it's more complicated than that. "Perfect Strangers", Spanish title "Perfectos Desconocidos", is a remake of a 2016 Italian film called "Perfetti Sconosciuti", which means – you guessed it – "Perfect Strangers".

They say that you know a foreign film is good if it's remade in English. That isn't quite the case here, because it's an Italian film that's been remade in Spanish. But wait... "Perfect Strangers" has been remade in Spanish twice already, Alex de la Iglesia's film in 2017 and a Mexican film in 2018. It was also remade in Greek in 2016, only a few months after the release of the original version. A Bollywood version was made in 2018, called "Loudspeaker". It's also been remade in Russia, China, Hungary, Korea, France and Turkey. That's TEN remakes within three years after the initial release. Is that a record? Something about this story has fascinated people on a global scale.

Success Ratio:  + 5.8