Ennui is difficult enough to describe — a very particular type of listlessness that nevertheless carries different connotations for different folks — and even harder to visually capture. And yet it’s that exact emotional state which, fascinatingly, director François Ozon puts under the microscope in The Stranger, his gorgeous adaptation of Albert Camus’ critically acclaimed 1942 novella — a high school and university reading-assignment staple and by some accounts the third-best-selling French language work of literature of all-time.

Set in 1930s French Algeria, where racial and cultural tension lurks as an ever-present facet of life, The Stranger centers on Meursault (Benjamin Voisin, above), an emotionless and taciturn white-collar office worker whose apparent penchant for blunt truths has left him not without friends, per se, but just without much substantive connection to anyone or anything. He exists, and is seemingly fine with whatever each day throws him; when his boss dangles a promotion and move to Paris to open up a new branch, Meursault responds with a shrug, noting that one life is as good as any other.

When Meursault’s mother, who three years earlier he moved into an assisted living facility, passes away, he dutifully takes two days off work to attend to her funeral wishes, but sheds no tears and shows no emotion to any of the people who make efforts to comfort him. Upon return, his period of grieving marked by a black armband, he visits the beach and reconnects with Marie Cardona (Rebecca Marder), enjoying a swim and taking her to the movies to see a comedy (acts which will later come under scrutiny).

After Meursault’s neighbor Raymond Sintès (Pierre Lottin), a factory worker/pimp who doesn’t try to hide his occasional physical abuse of the women in his life, enlists his help in writing a letter, he attempts to repay Meursault by inviting him and Marie to accompany him on a beach getaway. There, they are confronted by a young Arab man, the brother of a woman Sintès hit. Later, Meursault returns to the area of the beach where the skirmish took place, and shoots and kills the young man.

Arrested, he shows no particular remorse. The remainder of the movie then details his trial, where various witnesses, from those present the day of his mother’s funeral to those close to Meursault — including another neighbor, Salamano (Denis Lavant), who beat his dog but comes to miss him terribly when he goes missing — testify to his character and mental make-up.

Almost the entire cast of The Stranger worked with Ozon previously (Voisin on Summer of 85, Marder on The Crime Is Mine), though in very different roles. Their trust in their helmer and no doubt various shorthands are evident in the lockstep that extends across performances and indeed to the below-the-line craftsmanship of the movie. There’s a refreshing and perhaps somewhat surprising seriousness to this existential telling, coming from Ozon and unadorned with any of his more typical seriocomic flourishes. Shot in sumptuous black-and-white by Manu Dacosse, the film is immersive and beguiling in large part because of how much confidence with which is told: its subject’s detachment is the point, and not something to be explained or shown flowing from clearly explicable motivations. Even in the moments when Meursault chooses to unpack his demeanor or reactions a bit, it’s left to the viewer whether or not to believe him. Ditto, ultimately, the movie’s metaphor and lessons to be gleaned from its interpersonal treatments.

The Stranger comes to Blu-ray via Music Box Films in a clear plastic case, presented in a 1.66:1 widescreen aspect ratio and a French language 5.1 DTS-HD audio track with (obviously) English subtitles. A motion menu set to film clips, atmospherics, and pieces of composer Fatima Al Qadiri’s low-fi score includes a dozen optional chapter stops. In addition to the film itself, it’s quite heartening that its home video presentation receives a bit of extra effort, which isn’t always the case for contemporary foreign language cinema.

In addition to the theatrical trailer, there are six-and-a-half minutes of costume and lighting tests, in which Voisin and Marder model bathing suits and other clothes their characters wear, while sometimes laughing and chatting (though we do not hear them). These preparations are still in practice these days but most associated with silent films, and their artful packaging here helps lend a sheen of old-cinema glamour to the proceedings; one also feels a bit like they’re watching a blend of the characters themselves and the actors portraying them. There’s also a three-and-a-half-minute gallery of poster and one-sheet concept art — some I believe chosen for the film’s 2025 Venice Film Festival presentation and other theatrical market releases, and other ideas discarded. If this inclusion sounds boring, it’s absolutely not. The artfulness of the offerings shown here, which experiment liberally with framing and visual metaphor, is a reminder both of the dearth of truly memorable movie posters coming out of Hollywood today as well as the huge gulf between the emerging AI-slop aesthetic and what the human mind can conjure and eye can appreciate.

Seven minutes of outtakes includes footage of Voisin actually smiling broadly (somewhat jarring, honestly), Marder taking a soft tumble during a beach-house-approach wide shot, and more. Three complementary minutes of deleted scenes come across mostly as trims, and smart cuts at that; one features Salamano actually telling Meursault something that he later says at his trial, and there is also a longer version of Meursault’s lawyer’s closing argument, which robs it of some of its punch.

The biggest jewel among the bonus features comes in the form of 19 minutes of interviews with Ozon, Voisin and Harder, in a packaged offering interspersed very lightly with a few short clips from the movie. Ozon talks about his fascination with the source material since his required reading of it in school long ago, but that if someone had told him two or three years earlier that he would attempt an adaptation of it he would’ve said they were crazy. When he re-read it, though (actually to focus on Meurseult as inspiration for another project), he found it beckoning to him in a very specific way. Voisin talks some about his process, and making his “soul heavier” to better communicate Meurseult’s dislocation from those around him. Marder reflects on her relationship with Ozon, and his fleshing out of the character of Marie from the novella.