First of all, not to confuse this Foreigners (The strays), From Netflixwith Straysa film about an abandoned dog who joins other stray dogs to take revenge on his former owner, to be released mid-year.

Well, thinking back on it, Foreigners (The strays) AND Strays They don’t differ much… Suspense films, those that generate intrigue, keep information to themselves, which they will only reveal to the viewer at a certain point during the screening. This is what good suspense productions do: they pick up, perhaps, vague information, a sentence said as if by chance, an image.

Something.

Foreigners begins to arouse curiosity rather than mystery, when we see Cheryl (Ashley Madekwe, who if you have Netflix maybe, in one of those, you saw her in the first episodes of the first season of The Umbrella Academy; two years ago she was nominated for a BAFTA; the Series Salem) extremely nervous on the phone with her sister. There are credit card bills to pay, an insistent phone call, even to the landline (we’re at the beginning of this century: you understand), a note about going to the hairdresser and Cheryl leaving (run away?) from the house of she.

Now Cheryl is called Snow

Already Cheryl (maiden name?) is called Snow when the film advances a few years. She is a light-skinned black woman married to a white man (Justin Salinger), an insurance broker, and together they have two black children (because we are in Britain and they are not African American). Neve is the vice principal of a public school attended by her children.

Bad, it doesn’t work. She lives in the suburbs, has a latest model car, organizes a gala in the backyard to raise funds for the poor of Africa. And he scratches his head ferociously, because he wears wigs.

Which is extremely picky. tidy. She wants everything to be in order, and if something seems to be bothering her… Well, wait, or don’t take out the television or the device you’re watching the movie on.

Like when Cheryl/Snow sees a couple of people, presumably Foreigners of the title, which surrounds it.

In his directorial debut, British actor and writer Nathaniel Martello-White has some things clear – how to generate suspense – and others that are not so well managed here – how to keep the audience’s attention when the outcome approaches-.

Why Foreigners It’s the last fifteen minutes.

Those are weird.

It’s not that the film silences its genre, but it does get a little more violent.

There is a secret, which has to do with what we were seeing at the beginning of the film, and that the presence of these two young blacks, a boy and a teenager, irritates and shakes the nerves of Cheryl/Snow or how to who loves.

The director and screenwriter, interested in social and racial criticism, can be asked a few questions. At least one is what happened to the sister Cheryl was talking to in the beginning? Wouldn’t it make sense for her to somehow reappear when things start to get out of hand?

As M. Night Shyamalan In Sixth Sense -and sparing distances-, includes the director Foreigners a scene that has no further explanation. In Sixth Sensethe character of Toni Collette, the mother of Cole, the boy who saw the dead, goes to the kitchen, everything is in order and, in a few seconds, when she returns, all the drawers are open.

If they see Foreigners You will understand which scene I mean. Can you explain it to me?

“Foreigners”

Suspenseful/Drama. United Kingdom, 2023. Original title: “The Strays”. 100′, SAM 16. From: Nathaniel Martello-White. With: Ashley Madekwe, Bukky Bakray, Jorden Myrie, Maria Almeida, Justin Salinger. Available in: Netflix.