Perfect Strangers (2003)

Gaylene Preston's blackly comic thriller about a woman who goes home from the pub with a charming stranger (Sam Neill) only to find she's been kidnapped.

Melanie (Rachael Blake, Lantana) is initially captivated by the man's charm and attentiveness. He sails her away to his ‘castle’- a rundown shack on a deserted island. But passion becomes possession, and Melanie realises she's trapped. Torn between fear and desire, Melanie must escape – but her ardent admirer has other plans. Co-stars Joel Tobeck (Black Hands), Robyn Malcolm (Top of the Lake), and Madeleine Sami (Baby Done).

'The plot is unquestionably bizarre and aimed at exploiting the audience’s overwhelming need for a ‘happy ending'. Melanie’s emotional transition is the story’s central journey, and it is the small shifts in her psychological reality which to a large extent, drive the plot. The man is not a ‘baddie'. Melanie is not a ‘goodie’. Complex characters in life and in stories behave mysteriously until we get to understand them properly.' (Gaylene Preston)

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