Taking as its subject a group of elderly women stranded at a rural Canadian farmhouse when their bus breaks down, Canadian filmmaker Cynthia Scott's ensemble seriocomedy Strangers in Good Company makes a hefty push toward realism. This suggests untold directorial wisdom; given her story's compressed, two-day span, Scott realizes that she must all but eliminate character arcs to build onscreen credibility. We thus see only the faintest traces of these characters evolving, as subtly as they would evolve during an actual weekend in the country with these octogenarians -- hence the realism. And ultimately, instead of a typical Western comedy drama, the film begins to resemble something close to a series of Chekhovian character sketches, echoed by the recurring onscreen motif of lesbian artist Mary (Mary Meigs) illustrating, in a notebook, the environmental scenes that surround her. We correspondingly meet these women, one at a time, and Scott gradually fills in a few character and backstory details (in a paint-by-the-numbers sense) for each lady. The film becomes a giant life-quilt of individual stories, with countless minute implications -- and dozens of questions left unanswered -- for each individual. It's a minimalist comedy, in the tradition of John Irvin's Turtle Diary and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, from the "blink and you might miss it" school of character development. And one wonders how klutzily the same material would be handled in the mitts of an American director known for melodramatic ensemble pieces, such as Lawrence Kasdan.
Overall, Strangers works gloriously as an exuberant celebration of life, and pulls much of its poignancy from Scott's fascinating, Jaglom-like decision to cast the women "as themselves" (revealed by Scott's cuts to still photographs from each woman's actual life, which echo, in their visual details, the self-revealing bits of dialogue that the woman-at-hand has just delivered). The picture's emotional texture is wonderfully varied -- by turns funny, sad, haunting, and joyous. But Strangers demands much of the audience, depending on our complicity when Scott asks us to revel in the tiny, mundane, "beautiful life details" that emerge during the weekend that the film covers, such as American Indian Alice's (Alice Diabo) creation of a poultice for Michelle's (Michelle Sweeney) leg, or the wistful yearning that fills Constance's (Constance Garneau) eyes when she finally happens on her childhood vacation home. Minimalists will be hooked; others will be bewildered by the understatement, but may find the movie a deeply rewarding and enriching experience if they go back for a second round, with downsized expectations and a narrower gaze.