Perfect Strangers

Would you be willing to put your phone face up on the table at a dinner party along with six of your closest friends – prepared to read out every text message and take every call on speaker? That is the premise of Paolo Genovese’s award winning film, Perfetti sconosciuti (Perfect Strangers), a star performer at this year’s Italian Film Festival and now enjoying mainstream release.

As you’d expect with a set up like this, what ensues is a fraught night of escalating revelations – some comical, some bewildering, some devastating. In lesser hands, such a plot might have been milked for its dramatic potential, relying on sordid details and aftermath for its arc, but this is an insightful and intelligent script with impressive dialogue and well constructed characters. Though it does falter into cliché and excess with some plot points, it’s the way in which issues are discussed that shows originality and diligent analysis.

The twist at the end, though it allows for a tidy wrap up, actually intensifies the sense of disturbed realities.

A modern take on truth or dare. (RB)

★★★★

(NB: Italian with English subtitles)

BY RITA BRATOVICH