Complete Strangers

This could have been so great but the acting was very poor and because of this the writing, which wasn't the best, could have been so much more if the lines had been delivered better. The directing to be fair was good but this was overshadowed by the poor performances. It was sensual in places but even this was lost by the bad acting. I so wanted this to be more, it had so much potential to be a good thriller, or at the very least a good drama, but it was squandered by the bad casting. The annoying thing is that the main antagonist could have been so powerful and menacing but again the lacklustre writing let him down.

LGBT films have become very varied over time, just like any other genre of film. Romantic, frivolous, men and women coming out, however hard or easy, and thrillers with some having echoes of the great days of Film Noir. ' Complete Strangers ' seems to me to fall into the extreme Noir category and I imagined Barbara Stanwyck in this one with of course certain changes in the script. It could have worked but for me it didn't. The dialogue for a start needed a definite rewrite, and the acting from all of the cast well below average. Basically without giving away too many spoilers it revolves around a youngish man living in luxury in Budapest and like all good/bad characters out of Film Noir he has a past which he cannot recall. He walks through the beautiful streets and the less beautiful, but emptily rich apartments with a lost soul look on his face. Young and youngish men try to help him, but when he looks into mirrors or has dreams he sees himself as a sort of Jekyll and Hyde. He has terrible dreams and the viewer sees quite clearly that there must be a revelation. And of course there is in a moody forest/mountain setting and I will say no more about the plot. Personally I found it tiresome and long and I feel Pau Maso, the director should have chosen someone else for the lead role of the moody young man. Directors should in my opinion stick with directing and I can only think of Rainer Werner Fassbinder who succeeded in doing both. And the film is too long, lingering on certain scenes where it should have moved on. I mentioned the dialogue, which was inferior enough, and most of the cast delivered it as if they were on Valium. At times it is very moralistic about pornography, but the morality of that was undercut by painfully unerotic films. It certainly made homosexual acts to be decidedly unappealing and there is a moral in that if you can find it. The irony of all this is that it is filmed in Hungary, which is a very ' moral ' country, and this made me feel more disturbed than the twists and turns of the plot. I give it a 3 for the Negulesco concentration on fine shots of Budapest and mountainous forest scenes.

A couple of unkind reviewers claim this film is bad. I'm not really a review type guy but had to just for the sake of the film's quality. As an avid LGBT film fan, I've seen all the higher and lower end movies out there, from TLA originals to Here Tv, and so on... this one, despite its flaws, seems on the higher end. Complete Strangers is a really good thriller, with romantic vibes, that quickly turns dark. Without going too deep into the movie, I found the film to be very easy to watch and entertaining. The writing was good, the acting was fantastic, especially Matthew Crawley as Hugo, a new talent to watch. What really impressed me though, and this is not something common in lower-budget movies, was the sound quality as well as the image. Ronnie Minder's soundtrack is mind-blowing. The reason I give 9 stars and not 10 is because I felt Pau Masó should pick directing over acting, as it felt like there was too much on his plate. I personally really like him as an actor too, but movies are hard work, and one can't simply do everything. You gotta pick one! Other than that, amazing! Highly recommend!

Regardless of strength of story, the lead actor is excruciatingly difficult to watch. He's flat and just not good. The pitch of his voice also had me itching to turn the movie off.

As for the story...eh? As others have mentioned, it has a really big twist at the end. Is the twist good enough to justify watching the movie? I guess if you're not paying for it and you can get past the poor performance of the lead. Then sure. Overall though, the story is weak, Hugo abusive, and the lead pathetic.

I understand where the director is coming from but the story is messy, the acting is slow, the lead actor is painful to watch and even the twist(s) at the end won't save the whole thing.

2 for the beautiful images of Budapest and its countryside.