Stranger in My Pocket

Seven old friends come together for dinner. A game is proposed at the table: everyone puts their phone down and for the length of the meal every message, every call and every notification will be read aloud. Nobody objects, because whoever objects looks guilty. As the evening goes on the phones begin to ring. Serra Yılmaz directs in her first work as a director. Ferzan Özpetek produced. The cast includes Belçim Bilgin, Buğra Gülsoy, Çağlar Çorumlu, Leyla Lydia Tuğutlu, Serkan Altunorak, Şebnem Bozoklu and Şükrü Özyıldız. The source is Paolo Genovese's Italian film Perfetti Sconosciuti of 2016. That text is among the most remade films in the world, with versions produced in dozens of countries, and this is the Turkish one. The form is a single location and near real time; the narrative never leaves the dinner table and does not hide its theatrical source. The changes the adaptation makes are local. Social pressure, family relations and what certain secrets mean in Turkey are rearranged against the original text. It opened on 2 February 2018 and led the box office in its first week. Its weakness is rhythm; as the secrets open in order the narrative becomes predictable, and the ending loses its surprise by staying faithful to the original. Who it is for: viewers who like single location comedy drama and ensemble dinner films. Who it is not for: everything is familiar to anyone who saw the original, some characters exist on a single trait, and the arguments are artificial in places.