''Perfect Strangers'' ( it, Perfetti sconosciuti) is a 2016 Italian

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film directed by

Paolo Genovese Paolo Genovese (born 20 August 1966) is an Italian director and screenwriter. Life and career Born in Rome, after graduating in Economics and Business Genovese started his career at McCann Erickson, directing over one hundred commercials and w ...

. It was released in Italy on 11 February 2016. The film was a critical and commercial success, winning the

David di Donatello The David di Donatello Awards, named after Donatello's ''David'', a symbolic statue of the Italian Renaissance, are film awards given out each year by the ''Accademia del Cinema Italiano'' (The Academy of Italian Cinema). There are 26 award cat ...

in the Best Film Category and grossing more than €16 million in Italy. It has been remade in more than 20 countries.

Plot

On the evening of a total eclipse of the moon, seven close friends gather for a dinner party. Early in the meal, one of the friends, a relationship

therapist Therapist is a person who offers any kinds of therapy. Therapists are trained professionals in the field of any types of services like psychologists, social workers, counsellors, life coachers and others. They are helpful in counselling individuals ...

named Eva, says that she is convinced that many couples would separate if they saw the messages on each other's phones. As the friends debate this contention, they agree—some of them reluctantly—to play a game. They will each place their phone on the table and they will share their messages and calls with the rest of the group. At first, the game seems harmless; no one has anything to hide. Gradually, the calls and messages become more compromising. They reveal that one married woman is having an affair and that a man who has been pretending to have an absent girlfriend is not who he seems. As the calls continue, the network of lies and secrets becomes increasingly tangled. Almost no one at the table is spared. By the end of the night, the group's friendships, marriages, and romances have been shattered. As the guests leave the apartment, they behave as if nothing untoward has taken place. Each of their relationships is exactly as it was at the start of the evening. The game never happened. The whole film has been a

hypothetical A hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous obser ...

Cast

Giuseppe Battiston Giuseppe Battiston (born 22 July 1968) is an Italian actor. He has appeared in more than 50 films since 1990. Filmography Film Television References External links * 1968 births Living people Italian male actors Peo ...

as Peppe *

Anna Foglietta Anna Foglietta (born 3 April 1979) is an Italian actress. She has appeared in the films '' Escort in Love'' and '' Ex – Amici come prima!''. She has also appeared in several television series such as '' Distretto di Polizia'' and '' The Mafia ...

as Carlotta *

Marco Giallini Marco Giallini (born 4 April 1963) is an Italian actor. Life and career Born in Rome, Giallini is the son of a housewife and a furnace labourer. After attending the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico, he began acting on stag ...

as Rocco *

Edoardo Leo Edoardo Leo (born 21 April 1972) is an Italian actor, director and screenwriter. Life and career Born in Rome, Leo, a graduate in Literature and Philosophy from the Sapienza University of Rome, started attending acting courses at young age a ...

as Cosimo *

Valerio Mastandrea Valerio Mastandrea (born 14 February 1972) is an Italian film, stage and television actor. Life and career He was born in Rome. While being a student of philosophy, in the early 1990s Mastandrea enjoyed some success thanks to the semi-regular pa ...

as Lele *

Alba Rohrwacher Alba Caterina Rohrwacher (, ; born 27 February 1979) is an Italian actress. Early life Alba Rohrwacher was born in Florence, the daughter of a German father and an Italian mother. From the age of 17 to 21 she studied medicine, intending to be a ...

as Bianca *

Kasia Smutniak Katarzyna Anna "Kasia" Smutniak (; born 13 August 1979) is a Polish-Italian actress and model. Personal life Smutniak was born in Piła, Poland. Her father, Brigadier General Zenon Smutniak, is a military pilot and served in the Polish Air Fo ...

as Eva *

Benedetta Porcaroli Benedetta Porcaroli (born June 11, 1998) is an Italian actress. She is best known for her role as Chiara Altieri in the Netflix series ''Baby An infant or baby is the very young offspring of human beings. ''Infant'' (from the Latin word ''in ...

as Sofia

Reception

The film was number-one on its opening week in Italy, with . On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, it has an approval rating of 77% based on reviews from 13 critics. It grossed $31.6 million at the box office.

Accolades

Remakes

, remakes were underway in Qatar and Sweden. In February 2017,

The Weinstein Company The Weinstein Company (usually credited or abbreviated as TWC) was an American independent film studio, founded in New York City by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in March 2005. TWC was one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America prior ...

acquired the rights to an English-language remake. In December 2019,

Issa Rae Jo-Issa Rae Diop (born January 12, 1985), credited professionally as Issa Rae, is an American actress, writer, producer, and comedian. Rae first garnered attention for her work on the YouTube web series ''Awkward Black Girl''. Since 2011, Rae h ...

was announced to write and star in the US remake. Rae will produce the film along with

Spyglass Media Group Spyglass Media Group, LLC, formerly Spyglass Entertainment, is an American film production company founded by Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum in 1998. History Spyglass Entertainment On August 21, 1998, Gary Barber, former vice chairman and COO ...

, a subsidiary of

Lantern Entertainment Lantern Entertainment, LLC is an American independent film studio. It was formed by Lantern Capital Partners after it acquired the assets of The Weinstein Company on July 16, 2018, after the latter company's bankruptcy filing (which was a resul ...

, which acquired the assets of The Weinstein Company after its bankruptcy.

References

External links

* * {{David di Donatello Best Film 2016 films 2016 comedy-drama films Films directed by Paolo Genovese Films shot in Rome Italian comedy-drama films 2010s Italian-language films