TV Review: Quibi’s The Stranger starring Dane DeHaan and Maika Monroe

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Plot: In The Stranger an unassuming young rideshare driver is thrown into her worst nightmare when a mysterious Hollywood Hills passenger enters her car. Her terrifying, heart-stopping ride with the stranger unfolds over 12 horrifying hours as she navigates the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles in a spine-chilling game of cat and mouse.

Review: Of all the "movies in chapters" airing on Quibi, none feels more like a movie than The Stranger. While some of the programming on the streaming service, especially Most Dangerous Game and When The Streetlights Go On, have a cinematic feel, they also feel almost like the caliber of marquee television series airing on networks like HBO or FX. But, Veena Sud's The Stranger has a very deliberate format to it's story and comes across like an indie film you would see at a festival like Sundance or TIFF. With talented actors Dane DeHaan and Maika Monroe at the forefront, The Stranger is a wicked thriller that plays with both Quibi's format and a variation on the real time conceit of FOX series 24. 

The Stranger treads some familiar ground with the story of Clare (Maika Monroe), a Midwestern girl with dreams of becoming famous who makes her way from Kansas to Los Angeles. It is there that her innocence becomes the target of a sinister man, Carl E. (Dane DeHaan) when she picks him up as his rideshare driver. The interplay between Clare and Carl starts out flirtatious and playful before quickly devolving into a hunter-prey dynamic reminiscent of the classic horror film THE HITCHER. Peppered with political and societal references that firmly place it in the #MeToo era, Clare and Carl drive into the darkness and we reach the end of the first ten minute chapter of this story.

Quibi as a platform needs to set stories up quickly and efficiently which means we don't necessarily have the same amount of time to ease into this tale as we would a traditional TV series or feature film. But writer-director Veena Sud, best known for AMC's thriller The Killing, uses a real time approach to tell the story that keeps the urgency intact while the story never stops moving. Each chapter of the story is set in a single hour with the ten minute episodes being about ten real minutes of that hour. Of the three episodes made available for review, we see much of the footage from the trailer for The Stranger which begins laying down some clues that this series may not be as conventional as it seems.

Having seen my fair share of thrillers and horror movies over the years, I have a good sense of what is coming in The Stranger. Odds are if you don't have an inkling by the end of the first episode, you may by the second. I won't spoil it here for any of you wanting to go in fresh, but if the twist is what I think it is, some viewers may be turned off while others will be completely bought in. Veena Sud has done great work in this genre before so there is always the possibility that this twist could be a red herring or maybe even the first of multiple narrative turns that play with the convention of the story. Either way, thanks to the chemistry between DeHaan and Monroe, it makes for a very engaging series.

Maika Monroe has already made herself a genre stalwart thanks to roles in IT FOLLOWS and THE GUEST but she does some excellent work here. She plays a character that could have been a conventional damsel in distress but she easily balances naivete with an underlying strength that begins to build as the story evolves. At the same time, Dane DeHaan has always exuded a borderline appeal between hero and villain and we have seen them both on screen in both CHRONICLE and the underrated A CURE FOR WELLNESS. He gives another of those scarily charming performances here and it is quite fun to watch. I don't know if the rest of this story will deliver on the promise of the first episodes, but I am very excited to find out.

The Stranger premieres daily episodes starting April 13th on Quibi.

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