"Stranger Than Paradise" - Film Review

 

I imagine the best mood to be in to watch Stranger Than Paradise is to be super depressed, just full on doubting humanity.

The film isn’t morbid and it doesn’t traffic in sadness, but everything about the film screams loneliness. We constantly find characters isolated, either in desolate cityscapes, empty apartment or hotel rooms, or rundown cars. 

And no one seems really all that content; they’re restless and frustrated, and they don’t really know how to articulate it all that well. Everyone is deadpan, which at times is used for humorous effect. These people are hapless and unmotivated.

When his cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) flies in from Hungary, Willie (John Lurie) isn’t happy to see her but rather is just really angry about the burden of dealing with her for a week. He’s a real jerk, dismissing her and never inviting her out anywhere. But over time a begrudging respect forms between the two. Enough so that when Willie decides to go on a vacation a year later with his friend Eddie (Richard Edson) they head out to Cleveland to visit her. They’re on better terms this time around, and the experience convinces Willie to head down to Florida with his cousin (title carded as “paradise” - although it feels like a warmer version of the shitty locales they've already been). But Willie keeps treating Eva lousy, ignoring her entirely, and he eventually blows their money gambling. She’s had enough and after running into some money through a misunderstanding (supposedly a miscommunicated drug deal) she hops on the next flight back to Europe. Willie runs to the airport but is too late to prevent her from heading home.  

Not much happens in the film. The plot is rather minimal, largely observing people and then at that mostly watching them sit around bored and disinterested. The film often feels more concerned with acting as a mood piece than telling a story. The film has a strong sense of atmosphere conveyed especially well by its low budget, black and white cinematography. Most of the time there’s not even dialogue, but just the actors inhabiting the places they’re in. The stripped down minimalism would be a point of inspiration for later American independent films and its style is familiar of many later indies.

There's a lot of low-key, understated humor to be found in the film and the obliviousness of its characters, as well as the occasional absurdity of events.      

A funny, dark, understated film that takes pleasure and finds humor in the everyday and the mundane. 

Grade: B