Foreigner Review
Foreigner (2025) Film Review from the 29th Annual Fantasia Film Festival, a movie written and directed by Ava Maria Safai and starring Rose Dehgan, Chloe MacLeod, Ashkan Nejati, Talisa Mae Stewart, Victoria Wardell, Laurel Bailey, Erin McInnis, Jim Maher, Matthew Graham, Cassie Collis, Atrin Saghafi and Luis Carbajal.
Smile meets Mean Girls in Foreigner, an inspired new horror/comedy about a young Persian teenager mixing and mingling with some weirder than weird students at her new Canadian high school. What starts out as a movie about a girl following her family’s lead to find happiness turns into a rebellious nightmare as Yasamin Karimi (Rose Dehgan) starts to explore her own unique possibilities against the backdrop of her friendship with some local female students with bizarre results all around. Credit writer/director Ava Maria Safai for coming up for an incredibly ingenious basic premise even if it runs out of steam towards the conclusion and feels like it needed a few more bucks in its budget to fully realize its potential.
Yasamin likes a short pink shirt that she buys at a local store as her mom criticizes her for her peculiar choice in $7 shirts. When Yasamin befriends the clique headed by the quirky Rachel Stanford (the slyly appealing Chloe MacLeod), things take a bit of a nose-dive for her that has its minor pluses as well. Rachel sort of belittles Yasamin like when she says she thinks that Yasamin looks Spanish. Rachel says that she likes Spanish people even though Yasamin isn’t Spanish. That exchange proves to be a bit uncomfortable. When Rachel shows Yasamin a hockey puck to try to teach Yasamin about the sport, it’s clear Yasamin is a lot smarter than Rachel and her crew give her credit for.
A scene that rings true here comes when a teacher asks her new student, Yasamin, what her favorite show is, and Yasamin admits it’s “Friends.” A conversation ensues about her favorite character on the program, Monica, and Yasamin’s new friend starts to compare Yasamin to Monica in terms of the way they look similar to one another. Things get stranger when Yasamin dyes her hair blonde in an effort to take on a new look and meets Rachel’s parents (the mom is humorously played straight by Erin McInnis).
Ashkan Nejati plays Yasamin’s seemingly caring dad, Ali, who wants the best for his daughter who is becoming rebellious because of her entanglement with the odd crew she associates with at the school and outside. Things get even weirder as the plot takes a sharp turn that sends Yasamin on a very unusual off-center path to self-discovery.
Among the other performers who shine here is Talisa Mae Stewart who looks and acts like she was born to play in a twisted movie like this one. Filmmaker Ava Maria Safai wisely creates a three-dimensional character with Yasamin but borrows heavily from movies like Mean Girls and Smile, in particular, especially in the wickedly twisted facial expressions that appear slapped on the faces of the girls in the movie who befriend Yasamin. They come across like aliens more than humans at times which gives the film that distinct feeling of a potential future horror movie classic.
Foreigner was such a unique movie for a large chunk of its running time that the lackluster ending feels a bit tacked-on and forced. What the movie tries to say about fitting in and cultural differences (and values) remain valid points. However, the film borrows so heavily from other films to make itself stand out from the pack. This film is unique as a whole, but only because of the detours the script takes which steer it on a different track than the films it so humorously borrows from.
Though the adult characters have depth, the focus is usually on Yasamin who is played to the max by the earnest and appealing actress, Rose Dehgan. Chloe MacLeod is a well-chosen actress to play the foe for Dehgan’s character and the two play off each other in such a way that the themes here fit the structure of the dynamics of Mean Girls like a glove.
There is also the problem of the more supernatural elements which are sprinkled in which feel forced at times and have no real weight over the more realistic scenes that the movie displays to the viewer. Still, there are so many scenes that shine here that the movie is ultimately a guilty pleasure that occasionally gives Mean Girls a run for its money in its better scenes.
Foreigner is a solid effort by Ava Maria Sufai. This movie is going to serve as a steppingstone to more substantial films for the filmmaker, but there is a lot to admire here. Besides the efficient acting, there are a number of scenes which drive home the point of which culture is the more respectable one- the one that keeps us up with the Joneses or the one that makes us feed into our desire to fit in even if fitting in means we’ve betrayed some of our own ideals and values. Foreigner is smart when it wants to be, but it needed a little more polish to shine a bit brighter which it certainly had the potential to do so.
Rating: 7/10
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