Female Film Critics 24/375
The consequences of what can happen when a person is “othered” are front and center in writer-director Anu Valia’s atmospheric drama We Strangers. As it tells the story of a young Black woman named Ray (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) and her dissonant, uncomfortable relationships with the people who hire her to clean their houses, the film — Valia’s feature debut — explores the complex intersection of race, class, and power dynamics.
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Filmmaker Anu Valia’s first feature, We Strangers is a subversive, darkly funny and bitter narrative commentary on socio-economic racial profiling.
The story centers on Ray, a young, intelligent, responsible. well-mannered Black woman who works as a for-hire house cleaner. She is diligent and thorough in her work. Her clients are well-to-do families, mostly White, who recommend her to each other, passing along her good services in the same way they’d share a recipe for pesto.
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