Under the pen name David Shane, reporter Rowena Price investigates a sex scandal involving a senator alongside her researcher Miles Haley. However, the story is shut down when their source becomes silent and her editor, a supporter of the senator, puts a stop to the story.
While walking home, Rowena meets her childhood friend Grace Clayton, who seeks her help in taking down wealthy advertising executive Harrison Hill. Grace gives Rowena her e-mails as proof of their extramarital affair, which Harrison recently ended.
A few days later, Grace is found dead, drowned and poisoned with belladonna, leading Rowena to suspect Harrison. With Miles' help, she goes undercover as a temporary worker at Harrison's advertising company, H2A. While setting up gift bags for a Victoria's Secret collection launch, she meets fellow advertiser Gina, who reveals that Harrison is rich because of his wife, Mia, and if she left him, he would be penniless, causing him to be more secretive with his affairs.
Rowena flirts with Harrison both online and in real life, but she does not realize that the online Harrison is actually Miles, who is secretly obsessed with her. One evening, Harrison catches Rowena snooping, thinks she is a corporate spy, but believes her story of wanting to leave him a note without others finding out she likes him. He pretends to fires her, but only to take her to dinner where they make out. When she goes to the bathroom, he finds a text from Miles on her phone and discovers she has been lying. He finally accuses her of spying for Kirschenbaum and fires her.
At Miles's apartment, Rowena discovers a shrine to her and explicit pictures of Miles and Grace, before she confronts him. He defends himself by providing evidence that Harrison had access to belladonna for poisoning. Rowena goes to the police, and Harrison is arrested for the murder of Grace.
After Harrison's conviction, Miles visits Rowena and reveals that he knows she is the real killer and used the investigation to frame Harrison. Rowena then flashes back to a memory of her father attempting to molest her, and her mother subsequently bludgeoning him to death with a fireplace poker. A younger Grace watches from her window as they bury the body; Grace has been blackmailing Rowena with this information ever since.
Miles goes on to describe how Rowena had plotted the murder to end Grace's blackmail and pinned the crime on Harrison. When he asks how she intends to keep him quiet, she stabs him to death and ransacks the kitchen. Rowena then calls the police, claiming to have been attacked by Miles and that he might have been the real murderer. As she waits for the police, a man looks out of a neighboring window, having witnessed the events.
In September 2000, it was reported that Revolution Studios had signed a deal with Jon Bokenkamp to write the script Perfect Strangers with Julia Roberts attached to star.[3] In November 2001, Philip Kaufman became attached to direct and develop the film with Frank Renzulli slated to do a rewrite.[4] Kaufman was intrigued by the script, which followed a female investigative journalist going undercover on the Internet to solve the mystery of a friend’s murder, and relished the opportunity to work with Roberts.[4] In December 2002, Revolution hired Bob Edwards to conduct further rewrites to the film.[5] Kaufman was intrigued by the script, which followed a female investigative journalist going undercover on the Internet to solve the mystery of a friend’s murder, and relished the opportunity to work with Roberts.[4] In November 2004, Halle Berry had been set as the lead as Roberts had dropped out due to scheduling conflicts with another Revolution production Mona Lisa Smile, with Todd Komarnicki hired to perform another rewrite on the film.[6][7] In August 2005, Bruce Willis was announced to have joined the cast with James Foley directing.[8]
Filming
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2019)
Some of the scenes were filmed in the lobby of the new 7 World Trade Center,[9] before its opening on May 23, 2006.
Release
Marketing
The characters of Grace, Josie, and Mrs. Hill all have blogs dating back to September or October 2006 with YouTube videos of the respective actresses, in character, speaking the text of the entry with minor changes. This was a relatively new form of viral marketing similar to an alternate reality game.
Home media
Perfect Stranger was released on August 21, 2007, on DVD and Blu-ray.[10]
The film was reissued on Blu-ray on April 4, 2017, by Mill Creek Entertainment. It is included as a 3-pack with Straightheads (2007) and Wind Chill (2007), the latter two making their US Blu-ray debut.[11]
Reception
Critical response
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Perfect Stranger holds an approval rating of 9% based on 142 reviews, with an average rating of 3.5/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "Despite the presence of Halle Berry and Bruce Willis, Perfect Stranger is too convoluted to work, and features a twist ending that's irritating and superfluous. It's a techno-thriller without thrills."[12] On Metacritic, the film holds a weighted average score of 31 out of 100 based on 31 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".[13] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[14]
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said, "Foley fights a losing battle with Perfect Stranger, a dull, dumb and unforgivably dated thriller, free of thrills and any kind of perfection, save a genius for product placement" ... "it's a techno thriller that treats the already cliché topic of Web abuse with an idiotic sense of discovery."[15]
The twist ending, with Rowena being revealed to have been the killer all along, was singled out for excessive criticism for breaking the movie’s internal logic. Mike McGranaghan of The Aisle Seat panned the film, especially being critical of the illogical twist ending, writing, "Making Rowena the killer is nothing more than a cheap shot, a pathetic attempt to pull the rug out from under the audience."[16] Brendan Willis of Exclaim! was particularly critical of the twist ending, writing, "In the last five minutes the truth behind the entire story is revealed and there is no logical build-up to the conclusion. There is no Agatha Christie/Sherlock Holmes "did you notice the clues to the killer’s true identity?" moment, this ending just comes right out of leftfield and hits you over the head with the stupid stick."[17] W. Andrew Powell, writing for TheGATE.ca, panned the film for cheating the audience out of a satisfying ending, writing, "Legendary movies are made by their endings. Even the stalest film on the planet can turn itself around, at least to some extent, with a snappy ending that either flips you on your ass, or explains the films events in a way that makes perfect, startling sense. Perfect Stranger certainly has a snappy ending, but only after plodding along for almost an hour and a half before turning the audience on its ass with a surprise ending that feels like we’ve somehow been cheated out of a fulfilling resolution. Give me a surprise ending any day, but don’t cheat me with an ending that doesn’t make any sense."[18] Nathan Zoebl of nathanzoebl highlighted the lack of logic in the twist ending as well, writing, "Perfect Stranger really has one of the worst twist endings of recent memory because it makes no sense and defies all logic. If the ending were right why would someone wait years upon years to plan a murder to hide something that seems inconsequential? Why does someone think their friend is a killer because their computer memory recalled that they visited a company website despite the fact that this person is a journalist and going undercover at this same company?"[19]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
