“I want you to be worldly,” Zoe Kazan tells her kids in a new trailer for “The Kindness of Strangers.” Lone Scherfig’s latest sees “The Deuce” actress playing a woman desperately in need of a fresh start.
When Clara (Kazan) discovers her abusive husband beating their son, she flees Buffalo with their children and heads to Manhattan. Asked by her sons about whether they’ll attend school, she says, “New York is going to be a kind of school for you.”
The drama tells stories about multiple characters living in New York, all of whose fates are intertwined. We also get a peek into Alice’s (Andrea Riseborough) life. The ER nurse considers quitting her job, where she’s rewarded for accepting a 12-hour shift by being told that, unlike her coworkers, she doesn’t have kids and “no one’s waiting” for her at home.
“Terrible things happen, and you have nobody to turn to, but you have strangers,” Alice says. “Be compassionate. Just be kind.”
It looks like the kindness of strangers will make a major impact on Clara and her family — she and the boys are welcomed to stay with stranger in New York.
“I hope the film’s many elements of lightness, sadness, humor, and melancholy collectively work as a funnel for one single emotion that the film itself formulates: something warm,” Scherfig told us.
“Their Finest,” “One Day,” and “An Education” are among Scherfig’s previous credits.
“The Kindness of Strangers” made its world premiere at this year’s Berlinale. No word on a release date yet.
