Stars: Michael Gambon, Lindsay Duncan, Matthew MacFadyen, Claire Skinner, Tony Stephens

Director: Stephen Poliakoff

Summary: A young man comes face to face with his large family - and they all have secrets from the past...

Perfect Strangers is a drama about a family reunion as told from the point of view of Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen). One of Daniel's relatives, Stephen (Anton Lester), has an archive of family photographs, which he is happy to share with everyone. This leads to Daniel discovering a whole other side to his family as secrets are uncovered and he meets relatives for the first time.

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Perfect Strangers, Stephen Poliakoff's TV drama, depicts an upper-class English family where distrust, dysfunction and despair are guests at the party. "As you know, in all families, things happen", says the cool Lindsay Duncan. That's the premise: things happen, some of them nasty. The family, once "mini-Rothchilds" and still "drowning in money", are gathered together in an opulent hotel for a grand reunion; the only thing wrong with the idea is that many of them are perfect strangers and the event begins to look more like a conference than an event with heart. Into the blend of well-heeled guests comes the Hillingdon contingent led by Raymond (Michael Gambon), the black ram of the family. His son, Daniel, is a surveyor and true to his profession sets about assessing the fault lines running through the family. Underlying it all is a sense of unease so that even pleasantries come across as deeply unpleasant. Raymond warns us that: "Everybody always lies".

Drama arises from the emergence of truth and buried bits of the past, as old photographs are screened to family members provoking curiosity about what lies behind the images. Scratch a surface and everywhere there's pain and mystery. Filmed in lavish London settings where everything is clean and sleek, Perfect Strangersmakes for slick visual entertainment. Although the dialogue is stilted and at times surreal, the music by Adrian Johnston cannot be faulted. --Joan Byrne

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Commentary With Stephen Poliakoff And John Chapman And Adrian Johnston, Interviews With Stephen Poliakoff And Cast, Photo Montage
Year:	2001
Release Date:	February 9, 2004
Runtime:	237 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	B B C D V D 1326
Keywords:	Perfect, Off, Two, General, Strangers, Wide, Screen, Tv, Drama, Discs, Schedule
Genre:	Drama