"Strangers in Good Company" is a delightful little independent Canadian film about seven disparate women who find themselves stranded in the woods and discover they have more in common than they might have initially thought.< The seven - six elderly women and their 30ish bus driver - are on a trip together, though we never learn why. They go off their intended path when one of their number wants to see her old house. But when they get there, she blithely says, "That's not it."
The bus breaks down in this remote area near a gorgeous lake and the driver sprains her ankle. So they seek shelter in the nearby farmhouse, which is dilapidated but becomes cozy over the course of their stay.
The film, which was partially improvised and uses a cast of non-professional actresses who call upon their own lives, is a fascinating showcase for observations about the nature of women in a universal sense, and is made up almost entirely of small moments, little truths revealed through conversation.
Director/co-writer Cynthia Scott, who has heretofore made documentaries, fills out the dialogue with gorgeously photographed segues, but it is those conversations that give the film its life.
The spunky cast is made up of Alice Diabo, a 78-year-old Mohawk Indian who occasionally acts as the group's earth mother; Catherine Roche, a nun who listens to church hymns on a Walkman as she tinkers with the bus' engine; Cissy Meddings, the film's most lively scene-stealer, a chirpy working-class housewife from England; Beth Webber, a shy, prim 80-year-old who keeps her collar buttoned to the top, wears a wig and still mourns for her son who died some 30 years earlier; Winnie Holden, another English woman who survived the blitz; Mary Meigs, an elegant, soft-spoken artist who confesses she is a lesbian but didn't come out of the closet until she was 60; and Constance Garneau, a quiet 92-year-old woman who is worried about dying.
Finally, there is bus driver Michelle Sweeney, whose inquisitiveness prods the older women, often making her the eyes for the audience. That may explain why Scott neglects to include her background - she's the outsider. But it's an omission that is a bit too noticeable.
"Strangers in Good Company" is slow-moving, but once you get into its rhythms you'll find it an utter delight. And you may never look at older people in quite the same way.
The film is not rated, but is probably in PG territory for discussion of adult themes, including some brief observations about a pornographic doll they find in the house.