The Stranger (2025)

Sun, Shadow and Spelled-Out Subtext - The Stranger review by griggs

Camus came into my life via the Manic Street Preachers, who quoted and referenced him so often I felt impelled to read his work. So I was oddly excited to see François Ozon tackle The Stranger. It certainly looks the part: gorgeous black-and-white, hard sunlight bouncing off white walls, shadows doing a lot of heavy lifting. Manu Dacosse’s camera gives Algiers a crisp, slightly unreal shimmer that suits Meursault’s detachment.

Benjamin Voisin makes Meursault more magnetic than blank, a man who feels things and simply refuses to perform them. It’s an interesting choice, even if it softens the shock of the character. Rebecca Marder brings real warmth and hurt to Marie, while Denis Lavant and Swann Arlaud add familiar Ozon flavour around the edges – half grotesque, half sympathetic.

The snag is the shift away from the novel’s first-person narrative. By dropping that tight POV, Ozon loses a lot of the book’s unnerving interiority, then tries to win it back by spelling out subtext in dialogue. The absurdism and existential shrug are still there, but you have to dig for them while the film underlines points Camus left hanging.

There’s plenty to admire – the oppressive heat, the courtroom circus, the slow slide towards catastrophe – but the post-colonial tweaks don’t add much, given Camus was already skewering the set-up. And slapping The Cure’s “Killing an Arab” over the credits feels crass and out of step with the film, like a knowing meme where a real idea should be.