Movie Review - I Was a Stranger

I'm torn on what grade to give this movie. For sure, it deserves an A for effort. This is a movie that needs to be seen by a lot of people. The message from the writer/director during the end credits sums up everything you need to know about this movie: everyone around the world shares the same basic needs-to be safe, protect their family, and have food on the table.

We read the news and hear that refugees were rescued off the coast of some country, and then move on. But what got those people on that boat in the first place, and did they all make it? People have gone through unspeakable trauma to get to that point. But to many of us living in comfortable homes, everything over there is just a fantasy. This movie brings that home. There are good and decent people, no different than us, except they were born in a situation that turns day-to-day life into a cacophony of trauma.

7:42●●● 95%

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That's the good. But, at the same time, as a movie, there is room for improvement. Writer/director Brandt Andersen did an amazing job, considering this is his first full-length movie he's written and directed. This is where I wish he had the resources to work with someone with more experience who could have smoothed over some of the rough edges and made this not just an important message but a work of art that would be mentioned alongside Schindler's List, Life Is Beautiful, 12 Years a Slave and Gandhi. The threads of this movie don't weave together as well as they could have and as emotionally impactful as this movie is, there's room for more.

Perhaps the most difficult thing to do in a story is make an unrelatable character become relatable. How can you make someone who lives in the comfort of American suburbia feel like they live in a war-torn city where bombs fall as commonly as leaves on a fall day? That's what's missing. I know the creators wanted to capture that, but it eluded them, as it has many others.

Grade: B+

Plot
A Syrian doctor and her daughter flee Aleppo, setting off a chain of events that binds five strangers together. A smuggler, a soldier, a poet, and a coast guard captain collide in a crisis that tests their courage, their choices, and their humanity.