Rating: 
Summary: Oddly Interesting
Review: Bored on a Friday night, I pulled this from the shelf noting Sam Neil on the cover. In reading the little blurb on the back, I was further intrigued. It's hard to explain it, but it reminded me of The Secretary (Spade). There is this consuming and compelling idea that takes the viewer at first so slowly you don't notice it until it is clutching you tightly, and you are grasping in return. You almost envy Melanie's situation in a very strange way.
Rating: 
Summary: "Your place or mine?"
Review: Perfect Strangers blends suspense and fantasy to form a haunting thriller. Rachael Blake plays Melanie, a working class woman in rural New Zealand who has a night at the pub and then goes home with the wrong (!) man. Sam Neill plays the unnamed stranger who kidnaps Melanie and takes her to his remote island, where she must deal with the man's frightening dream world. The story changes direction midway when Melanie takes matters into her own hands and begins to have oddly passionate feelings for the man.
Written and directed by New Zealander Gaylene Preston, this film is bizarre and surreal, and yet surprisingly likeable. Blake is the star, giving a dynamite performance as a hard-bitten good-time girl who survives disaster to live in her own make-believe world. Neill's role is smaller, but he is, as always, completely mesmerizing in a kind of dual role of tormentor/lover. You'll find lots of surprises in this curious little psychological thriller.
Rating:
Summary: superb, anti-romance "romance"
Review: "Perfect Strangers" is indeed a "audacious, brilliantly visualized and slightly unnerving" film that breaks all the rules of the stereotypical "boy meets girl" (in this case, man meets woman) genre. It cuts from scene to scene, never becoming typically sappy or sentimental, but moves ever closer to depicting the very heart of what makes a relationship tick: jealousy, obsession, fear, resentment, compassion, even love. The lovers are, at one glance, handsome/attractive/sexy/alluring, and at another, completely ordinary and ugly, and yet (or because of these contrasts) the viewer is drawn into their edgy world, wanting to know ever more about each of them. Great music underscores the plot development; beautifully filmed. Makes you want to go to New Zealand and live forever.
Rating: 
Summary: Kinda Boring
Review: A drunk lady finds herself captive to a total stranger on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere and starts to assume he is a little "cookoo". When a sudden change in events happen, and the young lady finds herself in controll of the matter, her life changes from what it used to be, to a maddening life of love and passion for the stranger. But when the young maiden finds herself now torn between her passionate love for the stranger, and yet another man who claims to be the owner of the house upon which the man and woman are now peacfully living in, things start to get a little confusing.
Rating:
Summary: Kinda Boring
Review: A drunk lady finds herself captive to a total stranger on a deserted island in the middle of nowhere and starts to assume he is a little "cookoo". When a sudden change in events happen, and the young lady finds herself in controll of the matter, her life changes from what it used to be, to a maddening life of love and passion for the stranger. But when the young maiden finds herself now torn between her passionate love for the stranger, and yet another man who claims to be the owner of the house upon which the man and woman are now peacfully living in, things start to get a little confusing.
Rating:
Summary: Bizarre, but enjoyable
Review: Amazing how everyone's perceptions of films are different. And thankfully so, otherwise we would never get mixed reviews.
Perfect Strangers is an interesting, yet bizarre film about a lonely man (Neill) who apparently lives on a deserted island. One evening he picks up a lady (Blakely) from the mainland and before she knows it, has been kidnapped back to this remote location. The film is of course much more than this. The film explores Blakely's disappointment with her own life and we then see a total turnaround in her character. My interpretation of the film is that loneliness can make people do things that normally wouldn't. Definitely not the boring film that other reviewers have stated. Worth seeing, and for the beautiful scenery too.
Rating: 
Summary: OH MY LORD DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME
Review: BAD BAD BAD movie. I watched it to the end thinking...OK...it must get better...it must...but it doesn't. This nutty woman goes off with some dude in a bar. He kidnaps her and takes her to a remote island...slaps her around...she knifes him to protect herself (which causes his later death). THEN as she takes care of him affections grow (even tho he slapped her around and kidnapped her..PLEASE!) and when he croaks she falls in love WITH HIS CORPSE! That's RIGHT...his CORPSE! She props him up to have a TEA AND CHAT!!! WHAT THE HELL?? Then she keeps him in the FREEZER so she can CONTINUE THEIR RELATIONSHIP in BIZARRO dream sequences!!! When the true owner of the island shows up she tries to shoot him in order to keep her CORPSE LOVE NEST secure. Well, she misses and later MARRIES THE GUY and dances at their wedding with the corpse in a dream-like sequence. What a PIECE OF TRASH!!! My advice...turn down the sound and just watch the New Zealand scenery. Just make sure to ignore the corpse which starts looking pretty tatty despite the tea parties.
Rating:
Summary: Romance for the Anti-Romantic
Review: I agree with the reviewers who pronouce this movie "bizarre" and "surreal". My response is, "And is that a problem?" At first this film masquerades as a thriller, but while you enjoy, watch closely. Perfect Strangers pivots seamlessly into a completely different and strikingly original film. Set against archetypal images of the sea and the epic-scale landscape of western New Zealand, this is a two character film, built on one man and one woman's mental images of the ideal romantic partner. The film defies categorization -- part black comedy, part romance, part thriller, part psychological study, with a tad of social commentary on the side. If you like your thrillers straight up and your film genres clean and neat, then just skip this film. It will infuriate you.
Rachel Blakely is terrific. Her performance makes her richly simple character accessible to all of us on the outside looking in and feeling a little like voyeurs in the process. And Sam Neill, ah........, Sam Neill. He makes 50s look incredibly sexy without any effort at all. His expressive face drives whole sections of the narrative and his nuanced performance is, in a word, great. Pardon me while I hyperventilate.
If you like the movie, then check out Gaylene Preston's director's commentary on the DVD. You'll like the film even more. Fine soundtrack too.
Rating:
Summary: Unexpected Plusses
Review: Like many, I turned to this film expecting to enjoy another
worthy Sam Neill performance. However, he was really beside the point in this understated role. The best things this film has going for it are the soundtrack (too bad it's not available) and the New Zealand landscape in which it was shot.
Rating:
Summary: NOT the cheesy 80's tv show but a very good kiwi movie
Review: This is a kiwi Movie about a Man who meets a girl in a bar and charms her into returning to his place. He becomes slightly obsessed and it's then about her plans for escape. This is yet another great movie from New Zealand.
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