A Beautiful Portrait of Moral Emptiness

Read Time:7 Minute, 14 Second

MOVIE REVIEW
The Stranger (L'étranger)
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Genre: Crime, Drama
Year Released: 2025, 2026
Runtime: 2h 2m
Director: François Ozon
Writer: François Ozon
Cast: Benjamin Voisin, Rebecca Marder, Pierre Lottin, Denis Lavant, Swann Arlaud, Christophe Malavoy, Hajar Bouzaouit, Abderrahmane Dehkani
Where to Watch: available on DVD/Blu-ray August 18, 2026; pre-order your copy here: www.amazon.com or stream here www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: The sunlight in THE STRANGER doesn’t offer warmth. It bears down upon faces, bleaches the landscape, and turns the beach into a place where thought and sensation become difficult to separate. François Ozon’s adaptation of Albert Camus’s novel is filled with beautiful images, though its beauty is rarely comforting. Every wall, suit, and exposed stretch of sand seems to reinforce the distance between Meursault and a world that expects him to behave in a certain way.

Meursault works as a clerk in Algiers during the French occupation of Algeria. When his mother dies, he attends her funeral without crying, asking to see her body, or displaying the grief expected of a devoted son. He notices the heat, the coffee he’s offered, the cigarettes being smoked, and the exhaustion caused by the ceremony. The emotional meaning assigned to the occasion by everyone around him never appears to reach him. Benjamin Voisin plays Meursault without turning his detachment into direct indifference. His face remains receptive even when his responses suggest otherwise. He listens, answers questions honestly, and allows other people to make plans around him, showing little interest in either resisting or participating. Voisin gives the impression of a man acknowledging the world around him while leaving the interpretation of those sensations to somebody else.

That approach makes Meursault unsettling without turning him into a monster. He isn’t cruel to Marie or the people who attempt to draw him in. He simply offers them nothing beyond the immediate truth of what he feels, which is often very little. When asked whether he loves Marie, he doesn’t pretend. When offered advancement, he sees no meaningful reason to accept. His honesty might appear admirable under different circumstances, but here it becomes another expression of his refusal to acknowledge any responsibility beyond the present moment.

Rebecca Marder’s Marie provides the warmth Meursault lacks. Her laughter and lightness contrast with his quiet observation, creating an affectionate relationship without ever feeling shared. Marie’s attraction to him carries an element of curiosity, as though she’s trying to determine whether something exists beneath his calm exterior. Marder prevents the character from becoming just a symbol of the life Meursault could embrace, giving Marie an awareness of how little she receives in return.

Ozon allows their scenes together to be sensual without forcing an emotional connection the character can't provide. Water, skin, sunlight, and movement communicate more to Meursault than language. His moments with Marie are among the few times he appears present rather than passively observing himself, although even intimacy doesn’t draw him toward commitment or self-examination. Pleasure exists, and then it passes.

Pierre Lottin brings something deeper and more explosive to Raymond, Meursault’s violent and manipulative neighbor. Raymond is emotional, possessive, and eager to justify his behavior, making him the opposite of Meursault in nearly every visible way. He draws Meursault into a dispute involving an Algerian woman and her family, confident that his neighbor will cooperate without questioning the morality of what he’s being asked to do. Meursault’s passivity becomes participation long before the killing on the beach. He writes a letter for Raymond, witnesses his abuse, and accompanies him through an escalating conflict without expressing approval or objection. His indifference doesn’t keep him outside the harm being done. It allows that harm to proceed without resistance, exposing the weakness hidden inside his insistence that nothing matters.

The victim’s identity matters more here than it does in Camus’s novel. Ozon names him Moussa and gives his sister Djemila a presence that pushes against the original story’s treatment of Algerians as anonymous figures within a French man’s philosophical crisis. Hajar Bouzaouit’s limited screen time carries tremendous importance because Djemila looks at Meursault without accepting the abstraction surrounding his crime. Her grief exists beyond his understanding, regardless of whether the French colonial court considers it important. This added perspective is necessary, though the film doesn’t explore it as deeply as it could. Ozon acknowledges the system that allows a French settler to kill an Algerian man while facing greater condemnation for failing to cry at his mother’s funeral. The contradiction is clear, and the closing images restore some humanity to the person erased by Meursault’s account. Djemila and Moussa occasionally remain positioned at the edges of Meursault’s story, rather than fundamentally changing its viewpoint.

The second half moves from the freedom of Algiers into prison cells and courtrooms. Meursault becomes an object examined by lawyers, witnesses, clergy, and spectators who are frustrated by his refusal to provide the explanation they all want. His trial becomes less concerned with the murdered man than with his behavior after his mother’s death. Ozon handles this shift with restraint, allowing the absurdity to reveal itself through repetition rather than courtroom theatrics. Every witness contributes another piece to a story society has already decided to tell about Meursault. The prosecution doesn’t just argue that he committed murder. It builds him up as a man incapable of belonging to the moral order, using his failure to perform grief as proof that death means nothing to him.

Swann Arlaud’s prison chaplain finally forces Meursault into the confrontation he’s avoided. Faith explains suffering, death, and judgment, but accepting it would require Meursault to claim certainty he doesn’t possess. The exchange produces Voisin’s deepest and most emotional work in the film. His outburst doesn’t redeem him or excuse what he has done, though it finally reveals the pressure beneath his apparent emptiness.

Meursault’s emotional absence is the point, but presenting that absence for more than two hours creates a difficult balance between intellectual fascination and dramatic involvement. Voisin remains compelling throughout, while the film around him occasionally feels so carefully arranged that its characters become part of the design. The trial should steadily tighten the pressure, but portions of it repeat an argument the audience has already understood.

Ozon has made an introspective adaptation without treating the novel as untouchable. His decision to confront its omissions of the elephant in the room gives the material a perspective needed for a modern audience, even when those additions stop short of shifting the story away from Meursault. The result recognizes that his detachment can’t be considered apart from the system protecting him, the people harmed by his passivity, and the life he takes without remorse.

THE STRANGER is visually striking, well performed, and more sensuous than its emotionally vacant protagonist would make you think. Its deliberate remoteness limits the force of several crucial passages, and the expanded Algerian perspective deserves more space than it receives. Ozon nevertheless finds a credible way to tell a story built around thought, alienation, and society’s demand that every person display the correct emotion at the correct time.

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[photo courtesy of MUSIC BOX FILMS]

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