The Comfort of Strangers
Screening on Film
Directed by Paul Schrader.
With Christopher Walken, Natasha Richardson, Rupert Everett.
US/Italy, 1991, 35mm, color, 105 min.
With Christopher Walken, Natasha Richardson, Rupert Everett.
US/Italy, 1991, 35mm, color, 105 min.
A favorite of Paul Schrader’s among his films is this stellar adaptation by Pinter of a typically disquieting Ian McKewan novel. An unmarried British couple (Richardson, Everett) wander through the look-alike bridges and waterways of Venice until they are reluctantly taken in by an older, married couple (Walken, Helen Mirren). Walken pulls out all the stops in a psychotic, over-the-top performance in a film which crosses elements of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Don’t Look Now.