Film Review: Friends and Strangers

Images courtesy of Bonsai Films.

There is no denying that James Vaughan is on a roll here as an Indie filmmaker. At just 23 years of age, he wrote and directed his first short film, You Like It, I Love It, that gained praise and attention. It was screened at numerous film festivals and won the ATOM award for Best Experimental Film.
Later he was the recipient of the prestigious Swinburne Award for Emerging Australian Filmmaker. James’s other credits include, either as writer or director, the documentary Heading North and the short, There Is No Such Thing as a Jellyfish. In 2018, James co-founded his own production company, Leitourgia Films. The first feature length film from both  and Leitourgia, listed in BFI’s Sight and Sound top 50 films of 2021, Friends and Strangers, is best described as a cinematic arthouse experiment. 

In Friends and Strangers, we meet two Sydneysiders, Ray and Alice (played by Fergus Wilson and Emma Diazwanders respectively), new friends that have both had recent breakups and are approaching their 30s.
Alice is a financial regulator while Ray is an events videographer. Through the lens, we see them go camping, though not much really happens there, aside from meeting a widowed man and his daughter to having an awkward discussion on relationships, and Alice feeling that Fergus is moving too quickly to start a relationship with her.
Time passes and we are back in Sydney. Alice is in a coffee shop telling her friend about her camping trip while Ray and his friend are having a job interview with a wealthy man who wants them to film the wedding of his spoiled daughter, played by Amelia Conway.

Friends and Strangers is indeed a surrealist production. There are elements of comedy and drama that weave in and out of this 82-minute long feature that does at various points drag on, made longer by the heavy use of establishing shots, long takes and scenes where the viewer is just waiting seemingly. The music that accompanies the film is at times unappealing and Friends and Strangers often fails at being exciting or suspenseful. Yes, there are plenty of changes of scenery throughout and there is plenty for the characters to do, but again, nothing really seems to happen, nor does there seem to be any major consequences of someone’s actions. The actors do a good job but the limited story does not allow them to take the story far. Then again, it could very much be interpreted as commentary on everyday life and how trivial things take up our daily lives with. The film also had a strong Stanley Kubrick-like feel to it. Though at times it was hard to care about the plot of the film, there is something about it that pulls you in to see where it takes you. 

Friends and Strangers is now open nationally in select cinemas. For more info and tickets for its limited run at ACMI, click here.