“Die Blonde”
While it’s great to see how this story plays with the tropes and styles found in popular coming-of-age movies, the real standout aspect of the film is its own message and willingness to remain vulnerable.
Ava Maria Safai has proven herself to be a genre filmmaker to watch, with her feature debut Foreigner infusing horror into the coming-of-age genre. The film takes audiences back to the early 2000s, and follows Iranian teenager Yasamin Karimi (Rose Dehgan) as she tries to fit in after her family’s move to Canada. As the new girl at school, Yasamin finds herself taken in (not of her own will) by three popular white girls who are creepily fascinated by her. And though the film is certainly in conversation with the teen movie canon, its exploration of theme and genre packs a punch that makes it a powerful and refreshing take on the tradition.
This is a film that knows exactly where it wants to situate itself stylistically. From the opening shots, we’re thrust into the mediascape of 2004, with pixelated advertising proclaiming the joys of dyeing your hair blonde. It is this aesthetic self-assurance—from the teen magazine that Yasamin reads in bed to the bright hair clips and makeup worn by the girls at school—that makes the film’s horror elements that much greater. Safai does a wonderful job of showing just how truly terrifying teenagehood (both in 2004 and now) can be, especially for girls like Yasamin who find themselves being othered both by their peers and by the Western media that upholds a very specific (which is to say: white, blue-eyed, blonde-haired) beauty standard.
The horror elements of Yasamin’s story take place both externally and internally: the three girls who “befriend” her often have terrifyingly exaggerated smiles plastered on their faces, and giggle maniacally seemingly out of nowhere. In this way, it takes the unnerving energy of the Plastics in Mean Girls and dials it up to eleven. But horror also manifests within Yasamin herself, becoming more pronounced the further she goes to “fit in.” I won’t spoil these moments, but the film goes to some impressively nasty places with its physical horror.
Dehgan does a great job as Yasamin and really showcases the internal conflicts that make up her day-to-day life through the film. We see her trying to navigate her life at home with her family and her life at school, which start to become more and more at odds with one another as the film goes on. This push and pull of identity is crafted really well, and only adds to the sense of anxiety that pervades so much of the story. The relationships between Yasamin and her father and grandmother, both of whom she lives with, were also a strong point, and I thought that the scenes between Yasamin and her grandmother (Maryam Sadeghi) were particularly powerful.
And while it’s great to see how this story plays with the tropes and styles found in popular coming-of-age movies, the real standout aspect of the film is its own message and willingness to remain vulnerable. No matter how old you are, these aspects of the film will resonate.
Foreigner had its world premiere at the 2025 Fantasia International Film Festival and will release later this year.
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