NEVER TALK TO STRANGERS

US, 1995, 102 minutes, Colour.
Rebecca de Mornay, Antonio Banderas, Denis Miller, Len Cariou, Harry Dean Stanton.
Directed by Peter Hall.

Never Talk to Strangers is a somewhat lurid psychological melodrama. Executive producer Rebecca de Mornay is a forensic psychologist interviewing Harry Dean Stanton as a rapist murderer. It is difficult to know whether he is feigning multiple personality disorder in order to get off his charges. He is also a critic of his psychologist's behaviour.

The psychologist meets a stranger in a supermarket and, despite initial resistance, begins an affair with him.

In the latter part of the film, things are not what they seem. It emerges that the stranger is a detective hired to investigate the disappearance of the psychologist's former boyfriend. Her father appears and she has memories of her mother's death - and it emerges that she suffers from multiple personality disorder. The film was directed by Peter Hall, better known as a stage director.

1. Psychological melodrama? Plausible, implausible? Audiences expecting heightened characters, situations, resolution?

2. The American city setting, psychologist's office, the court, apartments and warehouses? Authentic feel? Musical score?

3. The title and its use by Sarah? The encounter with Tony? The consequences?

4. The background of schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder: in relationship to Max and his explanations of himself, his self-defence, the plea in the court? The discussions between him and Sarah? The discussions with Sarah, the revelation that she had the disorder, the video evidence, the memories of her father and her mother's death, her father getting her to pull the trigger, his sexual abuse of her? Her defensiveness against this by creating alternate personalities? The killing of her boyfriend, the shooting of Tony, her father, the cover-up and on her not being called to court? Her giving the lecture?

5. Sarah as a character, at work, with prisoners, the discussions, her skills? The friend upstairs and his support of her? The encounter with Tony, the passionate nature, not knowing who he was, yet succumbing to him? The on-and-off affair? The hiring of the private detective? Her discovering the truth, the confrontation? Her relationship with her father, his absence, the guilt? The violence of the ending?

6. Tony, the mysterious stranger, Puerto Rico? Intimations that he was a policeman? The passionate affair? Sharing together, outings, the clubs, at the apartment, meals? His being followed, his research, the family at the airport? The truth about his file and her discovery of it? Investigating the boyfriend's death? The confrontation, the truth, his psychological means of disarming her - but her shooting him?

7. Her father, in and out of her life, the brutality of the truth, the flashbacks, his death?

8. The court case with Max, the approach of his lawyer to criticise her? The irony of the flowers, the death notice? Her suspicions that it was Max - and in reality herself?

9. The melodramatic tone of the film? Convincing or not? An entertaining psychological thriller?