SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

NateWatchesCoolMovies Between Strangers is a muted, introspective film about several women whose path in life has brought them face to face with emotional obstacles, and carefully explores them with depth and feeling, if admittedly not completely following through on each arc satisfyingly. Sophia Loren (yes, she's still alive!) plays an aging woman who believes in a psychic link between herself and a girl half across the country who she believes to be her long lost daughter. Her abrasive husband (Pete Postlethwaite uses his usual genius to make complex work of a thankless role) thinks she's bonkers. An aspiring journalist (Mira Sorvino continues to prove how criminally underrated she is) suffers a crippling crisis of conscience when her peppy father (Klaus Maria Brandeur) brings her a job that is beyond morally questionable. Finally, in the film's most stirring vignette, a lost, broken woman attempts to confront her estranged father, who killed her mother in a drunken rage decades earlier. Vancouver actress Deborah Kara Unger, who makes a point to daringly seek out roles that most would steer well clear of, is plain heartbreaking, a cello musician who's ultimate chorus is the searing lament and rage towards the hand she has been dealt. Malcolm McDowell is utterly compelling as the father, a man so annihilated by his own actions he can barely stand to be inside his own skin. Their story culminates in a quietly devastating face to face interaction that sets the screen ablaze with cold fire, a sequence both performers should be immensely proud of. The film has its uneven moments, and while neither of the segments has much to do with each other story-wise, they tie nicely together in the sense that here are three women who take a bold, bravely realized look at their own lives, and step off the beaten track of what's expected of them, and even what they've come to expect from themselves, emblazoning important themes of both female independence and reawakening.

gradyharp BETWEEN STRANGERS is a tough story told with unrelieved intensity, acted with underplayed angst, and directed with quiet strength by Eduardo Ponti. The "Strangers" are three unrelated women, each of whom has a burden that grows until it must be lifted.Mira Sorvino is a media photographer, daughter of Klaus Maria Brandauer (who has multiple awards for his own news photography, who has just had one of her images appear on TIME magazine - an image of a little girl from Angola who we gradually learn died in the fire Mira was photographing. She is haunted by the fact that the time she spent photographing the child could have been used to save the child's life.Deborah Unger is a concert cellist whose wife-abusing father (Malcolm McDowell) is released from prison despite her conviction that he should die for his cruelty, forcing her to leave her own family in the attempt to end her father's existence.Sophia Loren is a haggard housewife who has devoted her sad life to caring for her wheelchair-bound past athlete husband (Pete Postlethwaite) until she sees her illegitimate daughter she was forced to abandon becoming the sculptor artist she herself always wanted to be. Each of these women have visions of the same small girl at moments when they are forced to confront their pain and each finds a way back to salvation through 'living out a dream'.Some may find the story saccharine, but the actors deliver these sad folk in such an honest way that together they manage to capture our hearts. It is a true pleasure to see Sophia Loren act again and even the makeup she dons for her dowdy role cannot hide the fact that she remains one of the most beautiful women the screen has known - and one of the best actresses. All cast members are superb. Just be aware of the fact that this is a bleak story that requires much from the viewer. The rewards are worth it.

MartinHafer After about half an hour, I was almost ready to turn off the DVD because it seemed pretty boring and pointless. However, I stuck with it and was very amply rewarded as the movie came together to form a coherent whole. Up until about 2/3 the way through the movie, actually, how these three stories interrelated was completely uncertain--other than the fact the three main characters lived near each other. It was only later that the theme of loss and eventual redemption came to light. Three women all coming to terms with loss in their lives, then working through the crisis and ultimately making major decisions in their lives--and coincidentally meeting at the same table at the airport in the end.Sophia Loren plays, naturally, an older lady. Suddenly, she begins compulsively creating beautiful pictures but hides them from everyone. The reason for this is rather mystical but interesting. These pictures are a way for her coming to terms with a daughter she once gave up for adoption. While it was the best thing at the time, she is racked with guilt and failure over this.Mira Sorvino plays a photo journalist whose father is also a well-respected photo journalist (Klaus Maria Brandaur). He sees her as a "chip off the old block" after one of her photos makes the cover of Time Magazine. But, for some inexplicable reason she can't remember having taken the picture! Eventually, you figure out why and she is suddenly racked with guilt--should she photograph misery or do something to make a real difference is her dilemma.Deborah Kara Unger is an exceptionally talented cellist who has left her husband and young daughter. At the same time, her father (Malcolm McDowell--in a very restrained role) is released from prison after serving over 20 years for murdering Unger's mother. She finds she can't get on with her life and hovers between wanting to kill her dad, or herself or just allow her life to spin out of control--regardless, she is so racked with conflicting feelings she cannot function.How all three of these women resolve these dilemmas and deal with their regrets make this a great film. By the way, be sure to have some tissues nearby--you'll probably need them.

norcekri I heartily recommend that you watch this movie for the acting, not the plot. Briefly, this is a half-baked concept, sloppily written around the edges, but the handful of actors in the high-profile roles make it worth renting -- as long as you're not expecting more. The main characters are excellent in their roles, with a supporting cast deserving of award nominations. Sophia Loren does more with few words than most of our cinema stars; the rest of the cast match her well. The supporting actors with not quite too many words walk the fine line between doing too much and too little, and make each arc come alive for the woman in the middle.But give up on the plot. The three arcs do not share the common thread stated in the promotional materials. The little girl who appears to each is not a herald of emotional transition; rather, she is Ponti's (writer/director) admission that the preceding scene, supposedly emotional, has a weak ending, just as with the movie's ending (which is more like a cartoon ending than a high-profile movie). The girl is a pop-up window with a tiny banner reading "missing climax".I don't insist on having a cheesy Hollywood ending, where all the loose ends are tied up and the main characters are happy. "Between Strangers" simply fails to tie the three stories together. They are not "intertwined". They're paced similarly, but hardly parallel. When the movie finishes at a minor cadence point for each, there's no real feeling of resolution or accomplishment; any of the three could easily return to the previous life. The loose ends left behind are typical for real life -- in fact, none of the three seems to feel any need to clean up any loose ends. They all come off as self-centered, thoughtless people in this respect. (To be honest, several of their loose ends deserve no more.) Still, the plots start in the middle, end at a minor cadence, and don't really develop cleanly on the way. Various minor characters drift in and out, apparently important to the central woman, but the writer never informs us of what they're doing in her life, why she pays so much attention to them.