FOREIGNER (Fantastic Fest 2025) – Review by Nadine Whitney
Recently there has been an uptake in horror concerning performing “whiteness” and the pressure for people of colour to assimilate into Caucasian modes of beauty. Amy Wang’s Slanted starring Shirley Chen and McKenna Grace, and New Zealander Sasha Rainbow’s Grafted each tackle the feeling of otherness young women of colour feel especially in the pressure cooker of high school. Iranian-Canadian director Ava Maria Safai adds to the conversation with her debut feature Foreigner but the film disappointingly finds she doesn’t quite know how to articulate her ideas enough to stretch through the narrative.
Set in the already horrific early aughts where low-rise clothing and tiny tees were de rigueur: teenager Yasamin Karini (Rose Dehgan) relocates from Iran to Canada with her loving father Ali (Ashkan Nejati) and warm and wonderful grandmother Zoreh (Maryam Sadeghi). Since she was a child she’s been preparing for the move which was her deceased mother’s dearest wish. She practices her English watching her favourite sitcom and reads teen fashion magazines. Yet, when it comes time for going to high school for the first time, Yasi’s more than a little panicked that she will stand out for her accent and her ethnicity.
Yasi’s first class has a familiar “Cady introducing herself in Mean Girls” feel. Her teacher makes her stand in front of the class where she has to answer some banal question about herself before being able to sit down the back in front of the class “loser”. Yasi finds herself picked up by the resident popular girl Rachel (Chloë MacLeod) as “exotic” and “interesting.” The pastel coloured and butterfly clipped Queen Bee who comes with matching human accessories Kristen (Talisa Mae Stewart) and Emily (Victoria Wardell) takes Yasi under her taloned wing.
Micro and macro-aggressions abound but Yasi just wants to fit in with the “Stepford Students” and makes a lot of internal excuses for their behaviour. Zoreh and Ali begin to make excuses for Yasi’s behaviour which is “basic Western teenager,” although Zoreh keeps a closer eye on Yasi especially after she succumbs to peer pressure and gets a packet of ‘Die Blonde’ hair colour and takes the platinum plunge.
Zoreh fears that Yasi has made a terrible error and has invited a zār to possess her. An entity known for choosing melancholic female host to control. Zoreh tells Yasi it was a zār that was responsible for her mother’s death reaching into her via magazines and television shows. Is Yasi possessed? Or is she just doing too much and denying herself too often to fit in? Yasi isolates herself from Ali and Zoreh and dives even deeper into popular kid culture.
It’s ironic that one of Yasi’s assignments is on “Identity” (and honestly a bit too pat from a narrative perspective) because a clear identity is what Foreigner seems to be lacking. The pressure of conforming with people who actively distrust and dislike difference is not investigated significantly once the film moves into fairly light horror. Giving that a supernatural twist takes away the impact. The same can be said for the supernatural aspect which is never fully fleshed out. Ava Maria Safai also throws some half-hearted comedy into the mix which is supposed to add a satirical edge. Despite Rose Dehgan’s committed and quite excellent performance, she can’t keep Safai’s plates spinning all the way to the end of the film which fizzles out as if a final act wasn’t decided upon.
Foreigner does have some good set pieces particularly the “Stupid stuff white people say” parts, and it looks lively and recreates the era with enough plastic and ribbon chokers to attend a guillotine party. However, with nothing standing out as conceptually new nor the film committing to digging deep into the horror aspect, Foreigner feels underwhelming.
