by Anthony Frajman
One of the most talked about Australian films at this year’s Cannes, was Thomas M. Wright’s fiercely unsettling The Stranger.
Based on Kate Kyriacou’s book The Sting, the film is a fictionalisation of one of the most extensive undercover operations in Australian history, which ensued during police investigations into the Daniel Morcombe case.
Due to its subject matter, the film was one of the most complex challenges Wright has ever taken on.
“It was a very difficult film to make,” says the actor (Sweet Country) turned director.
Wright’s involvement in the film began when actor and producer Joel Edgerton approached him, having seen Wright’s acclaimed first film Acute Misfortune, convinced that he was the filmmaker to tell this challenging story.
“Joel had acquired the rights and had them for a period of time before he saw Acute Misfortune, and then thought, ‘I can see an alignment here between this filmmaker and this material’,” Wright says.
Despite the extremely sensitive material of The Stranger, Wright says he was sparked to take on the film by the moral questions the material posed, and his struggle to understand and rationalise a series of senseless acts of violence against women which occurred in Melbourne, close to where he lived, at the same time.
“In the earliest days of considering this film, there was a whole series of incidents of violence against women in the inner north of Melbourne where I grew up and where all the people I care most about live. And you felt a visceral effect on the community, both in terms of a collective feeling around safety, but also in terms of empathy for those victims and their relatives and all those close to them. I certainly felt a need to take on some sense of responsibility or conscience, for that,” he says.
“My response to this material was a moral one, I feel. And part of that was also to make this as personal as I could and to take on the full weight of this material. That meant thinking about my personal relationship to these sorts of incidents of violence and considering my own responses to that,” Wright adds.
In the film, which is uncommonly more focused on the ramifications of violence, rather than its depiction, there are virtually zero instances of violence.
Though the film could easily have chosen a different path, to lean into the violence, as many other films have, Wright says he was decidedly clear about not wanting to do that. His film had to have a strong sense of moral perspective.
“Although violence was the reason for the film, I was determined that it would not be its subject.
“The film isn’t defined by violence. It isn’t a film that’s about addressing violence. It’s a film that’s more interested in how you make meaning when violence threatens to render things meaningless,” Wright says.
“It’s a film defined by empathy. I felt at its centre, this is a film about connection, about the fabric that actually holds a society together. That [responsibility] was the weight to take on. And ultimately, I felt that that was what I invited into my home and into my life was a sense of great responsibility to ensure that perspective was a constant through the film, and that the film had a strong moral perspective throughout,” he adds.
Wright had gone through a similarly “exhaustive“ research period in making his first film, Acute Misfortune, adapting Erik Jensen’s titular book on the controversial, Archibald-prize winning artist Adam Cullen, together with Jensen. While both films involved rigorous, “forensically detailed investigative” backgrounding, and Acute Misfortune was more biographical, as opposed to The Stranger, which was a fictionalisation, he says The Stranger was far more onerous to take on.
“The sense of responsibility was substantially greater on The Stranger, because the severity of what happened was not an adult causing his own death. It was violence visited on a person who was completely undeserving of that violence.
“It’s a much more primal film than Acute Misfortune was. There are primal questions about the capacity for violence in human beings against their need for order and meaning.”
Wright says the film’s sheer scope and ambition, in addition to the hefty weight of its subject matter, was one of the biggest challenges of The Stranger, which required double the amount of scenes than most Australian films.
“The film is built around two central characters with two distinct sides to their personalities who are having to mirror one another – two separate operations; one an undercover operation, the other, a detective investigation. Two completely different film languages, one of them being forensic, the other one being psychological, two operations on either side of the country. And then, obviously that’s revealed to not even be parallel narratives. They’re parallel timelines which unite to drive the film through to the end.”
He says that scale of the film, the rigorous consideration, which was taken at every step, the complexities of the material, combined with a small shoot for what was a much bigger film, made the production extremely challenging.
“It was a very difficult shoot because we were dealing with so much hidden tension every day, as well as the natural difficulties of filmmaking. We were shooting under the normal conditions of an Australian film, with at times, twice the number of scenes, and only a seven-and-a-half-week shoot, and holding ourselves to [the highest] standard. We had substantial ambition to create a film that was realised on a craft level. For many of us in those senior technical roles, it was like being pulled apart by horses. It was a tough film to realise, let alone the subject matter and where those actors had to go.”
Not only was The Stranger an extremely gruelling shoot, but due to security considerations, Wright says many who contributed to or advised on the film, did so covertly.
He does, however, note that those individuals have seen the film and responded to its diligent adherence to real police practices.
“We will never be able to talk about how this film was researched or realised. But I can say that people who have worked on these sorts of cases have engaged with the film, they’ve seen the film and they can attest to the level of authenticity. I think it’s a film that people who are involved in this sort of work are going to respond to and have responded to with a singular kind of admiration for what’s been attempted.”
One of the most striking elements of the film, is the stellar performances and the total commitment of actors Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris.
Wright says Edgerton, who spent two years preparing for his role as Mark, gave absolutely everything to the film, as did Sean Harris, who spent a year readying for his part, on the other side of the world.
“Joel couldn’t have given more on this film, couldn’t have been more devoted, couldn’t have gone deeper. He did everything that he could, and I would absolutely say the same for Sean Harris. They disappeared into those parts, they were [almost] not really present anymore, and as a director you’re trying to create a situation where people can do their strongest work.”
Harris, in particular, gave an enormous contribution to the film – Wright says he came over to Australia to take on the arduous part of Henry, having just lost his father, who he was living with and caring for.
“Sean lost his father to Covid shortly before coming out. He’d never spent that long away from England. He was away from his partner, and having to crawl in Henry’s skin, as well as having to go through being locked in a hotel room for two weeks [when he arrived]; to say it was psychologically taxing would be an understatement.”
On Edgerton’s part, he spent a year preparing and forming a bond with Wright’s son, Cormac, who plays Edgerton’s on-screen child in the film.
Casting his own son was a conscious decision by Wright. Cormac was 8 years old at the time, and it emphasised what was at stake for the filmmaker.
“Joel spent a year in conversation with my son, building the material of that relationship. We’d just put them on the line to each other, if Joel was overseas or if we could get them together at any time, we would. It was something that they had constructed independent of me as well, that I would discuss with Joel and shepherd it to a certain extent,” Wright says.
Another actor in the film whose contribution Wright singles out, is Jada Alberts. Starring in the film as the shrewd and single-minded Detective Rylett, who is essential in solving the investigation, Wright says Alberts’ work was a “central” part of the film.
“I think their work just cuts like glass through that film. They are so clear. Their intelligence is so at the forefront of what they do in the film,” he says.
Wright says the experience of making of the film has left him with a deep respect and empathy for the victims, their families and the individuals who devote their lives to solving these cases.
“I certainly finished the film with a clearer appreciation of what it is to have to confront that material on a daily basis, and I felt humbled and affected,” Wright says.
The Stranger is cinemas now and on Netflix October 19, 2022.
