X
  • 1991
  • R
  • Skouras Pictures
  • 1 h 47 m
  • 1991
  • R
  • Skouras Pictures
  • 1 h 47 m

Summary An English couple holiday in Venice to sort out their relationship. There is some friction and distance between them, and we also sense they are being watched. One evening, they lose their way looking for a restaurant, and a stranger invites them to accompany him. He plies them with wine and grotesque stories from his childhood. They lea...

Directed By: Paul Schrader

Written By: Ian McEwan, Harold Pinter

  • 1991
  • R
  • Skouras Pictures
  • 1 h 47 m
  • 1991
  • R
  • Skouras Pictures
  • 1 h 47 m

The Comfort of Strangers

Metascore Generally Favorable Based on 20 Critic Reviews
61
User Score Available after 4 ratings
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Summary An English couple holiday in Venice to sort out their relationship. There is some friction and distance between them, and we also sense they are being watched. One evening, they lose their way looking for a restaurant, and a stranger invites them to accompany him. He plies them with wine and grotesque stories from his childhood. They lea...

Directed By: Paul Schrader

Written By: Ian McEwan, Harold Pinter

Where to Watch

Top Cast

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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 20 Critic Reviews
61
60% Positive
12 Reviews
30% Mixed
6 Reviews
10% Negative
2 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews

Critic Reviews

 View All
Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 20 Critic Reviews
61
60% Positive
12 Reviews
30% Mixed
6 Reviews
10% Negative
2 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
80
Mr. Schrader is a director of great rigor and discipline. The movie is fascinated by the baroque behavior it observes, but without imitating it.
By Vincent Canby FULL REVIEW
75
Schrader, one of this country's most literate filmmakers, can be a show-off, and there are times in The Comfort of Strangers when we're more aware of style than story -- this piece is impeccably tailored, and it looks awfully good even when it isn't making sense. [17 May 1991, p.G11]
By Bill Cosford FULL REVIEW
75
Director Paul Schrader has fashioned a film of surpassing creepiness. It's pretentious, too, and sometimes maddeningly dull. But the erotically unsettling atmosphere – exquisitely rendered by cinematographer Dante Spinotti – soon seeps in.
By Peter Travers FULL REVIEW
67
Something about The Comfort of Strangers remains aloof, creating a physical and emotional distance between its characters and its audience. Some of that is, no doubt, Pinter's script. But Schrader pinpoints a nucleus of moral decay and then observes it with a detached clinician's eye rather than the eye if a rapt storyteller.
By Marjorie Baumgarten FULL REVIEW
60
Slow and foreboding with a memorably creepy Christopher Walken. If you're looking for fun, this ain't it.
By Ian Nathan FULL REVIEW
50
The Comfort of Strangers is luridly silly, yet it isn’t quite dull. Walken takes his usual glassy-eyed menace to new levels of high-camp refinement — he manages to be over the top and minimal at the same time — and the film has an extravagantly lush atmosphere, due in large part to the music of Twin Peaks‘ Angelo Badalamenti.
By Owen Gleiberman FULL REVIEW
25
When the film at last reaches its supposedly shocking conclusion, it resembles an overinflated balloon that has finally burst. It is a film that demands that you pay close attention, then rewards none of your diligence. [12 Apr 1991, p.4]
By Mark Caro FULL REVIEW

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Details

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Production Company Erre Produzioni, Reteitalia, Sovereign Pictures, The Rank Organisation
Release Date Apr 1, 1991
Duration 1 h 47 m
Rating R
Genres
Tagline Venice . . . An ancient city of sensual pleasures. Two young lovers are drawn into a perverse web of sexual danger.
View All Details

Awards

Evening Standard British Film Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination

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