A young immigrant girl attempts to fit in with the popular kids at school by dying her hair blonde, inadvertently awakening a demonic force, and awakening the shadows of her past.
If you ask me, film is best when it’s used as a metaphor for important issues. It’s a proven fact that movies have one of the largest impacts on society. Enter Foreigners, a film that, despite being set in 2004, is insanely topical and poignant for the current political and social landscape, and it has a ton to say about it all. While the illustration of these statements can sometimes be a bit heavy handed from time to time, with the veil of fiction slipping and the commentary being pretty damn blatant in some sequences, it more than makes up for this by being an important breath of fresh air to the world from an underrepresented voice. Taking on themes of racism, immigration, cultural erasure, grief, loss of identity, and the pressure to fit in, Foreigner had so much going on that it’s almost a miracle it doesn’t fumble more of its statements, and yet it pulls it off in a way that’s enjoyable and enrapturing, albeit light on scares. I only wish the film weren’t classified as horror, because despite the elements of the genre being on display here, it never ditches its dramatic roots enough to be full on horror. It’s unsettling in several ways, yes, but the subtext here is more terrifying than the film itself.
My hat’s off, quite literally, to Ava Maria Safai, though. Her work here as writer, director, and editor, is extremely commendable. She’s masterful with a clear vision that doesn’t get muddled or lost by trying too hard to be anything but what she wants it to be. Foreigner looks you dead in the eye and tells you what it wants to say, and there’s something inspiring and wonderful about that. On top of that, she’s representing two often underrepresented voices in film; the female voice, and the Persian one. She gives us not only a look into life as a teen girl, and the feelings of being an outcast, but also compounds it with a poignant viewpoint of immigration and being an “outsider” simply for being of a different race and culture. You can feel Safai’s love for her project in every frame, with the deeply personal connection to the material being so tangible it had me in tears more than once.
The performance by the lead, Rose Dehgan, is out of this world, as well, and her delivery of certain scenes is another contributing factor to why I found myself weeping. Her tender and nuanced work as Yasi makes her not only endearing and relatable, but fully believable and heartrending. Even when her character does some rather questionable things, you’re still right there with her, wanting her to rise above and triumph. Other performances are good, too, with Chloë MacLeod being the perfect counterpoint to our lead. My only complaint is in the fact that the familial characters in the film seem to have no life outside of being nosy into Yasi’s business, which works for the story, but feels slightly out of place at times.
Effects, while somewhat few and far between, are well done and realistic, but the cinematography by Saarthak Taneja is the most noteworthy I’ve seen in independent film this year. With incredibly rich coloration and shadows, and a shifting palette to represent each sequence of the film, Foreigner is truly beautiful to look at. The score composed by Finka Wood is really solid, as well, pulling everything together into a wonderful package.
While horror fans may not like the heavy commentaries mixed in with the horror aspects, especially since it takes a rather long while for the story to reach the meat I’d the logline’s selling point, I personally loved Foreigner, and I sincerely hope it finds an audience of like-minded people. It’s a truly phenomenal work of film and social commentary combined, and I cannot praise it enough for having such a strong voice, both on screen and behind the camera.
Fantasia 2025 runs from July 16th to August 3rd 2025