Tina Kakadelis
The idea for writer/director Anu Valia’s feature film debut, We Strangers, has been rattling around in her brain for over ten years. The film looks at suburban life through the eyes of an outsider who believes the grass is greener on the other side. This outsider is a cleaner, Ray (Kirby Howell-Baptiste), who is brought into the fold of suburban drama when she’s hired to clean the personal home of a professional client. It’s this blurring of the boundaries that begins to weave the story of We Strangers. Years ago, however, Valia was just like Ray; an outsider in a neighborhood full of people who didn’t look like her.
We Strangers had its world premiere at South by Southwest in 2024 and is now screening in theaters across the country. Anu Valia sat down with Film Obsessive News Editor Tina Kakadelis to discuss growing up in the Midwest, Ray’s sense of power as an observer, and the score that takes the audience through it all.
Like We Strangers, Valia knows the ins and outs of the suburban midwest – the McMansions, the strip malls, and the nosy neighbors. She grew up in Northwest Indiana, went to high school on the south side of Chicago, and then went to college in New York City. It wasn’t until she made it to the Big Apple that Valia began to process her adolescence.
“That was my world, it was all I knew until I was 18,” states Valia. “I don’t even think I realized how much I felt othered. I understood it. It was just a part of my everyday existence. You sort of get used to explaining yourself to people who don’t know you, but there’s something beautiful about that, right? That’s how ideas are exchanged and ignorance gets really worked through.”
“I remember really feeling the otherness when I came back home after being in New York for a little bit. It was a feeling I didn’t even realize I had washed away from being in New York City. When I came back, I was like, oh, I feel a little uncomfortable, have I been feeling that way this whole time? I guess I have.”
That realization served as the kernel that would become We Strangers. Valia began the script in her 20s, but wouldn’t finish it until her 30s. What began as a film about the feelings of otherness from her youth grew into something larger.
“The real genesis of the idea has to do with assimilation and code switching. What does it feel like to be a constant chameleon?” poses Valia. “It is a superpower that you learn through survival tactics, but then what does it take from you?”
Ray lives in a world of rich, suburban families, but not as an active participant. At least not in the eyes of the people who employ her. To them, she’s the hired help who only exists when she’s within their home. They can’t fathom that Ray has a large, busy life outside of their neighborhood. Of course, Ray doesn’t see it that way. She sees her place in their homes as a position of power of sorts. A fly-on-the-wall observer who’s actually holding all the cards.
“Ray would say she’s powerful, right? She doesn’t see herself in the way that I think the people around her when she’s working see her. That’s confusing for her because, in her real life, she is seen by her family. Other people have put assumptions on her, put her in a different category. That’s a confusing thing. I know because I’ve experienced it. I’ve been blindsided by how other people see me because I’m experiencing myself in the world and that doesn’t line up sometimes.”
“Being an observer, it’s an incredible superpower,” continues Valia. “You can see how Ray can manipulate and gain power in these spaces. She sees things very, very clearly. She’s not blinded by outside societal pressures. She just repeats who they are back to them, tells them the truth. That ability to observe allows you to understand. When used for good, it allows you to understand people, speak to their deepest truths, and really get under the heart of what’s actually going on.”
“If we only see people at their surface and what they show us, that’s one of the problems with the world today. There’s not enough deep conversation and empathy building so we can actually understand each other,” says Valia. “All people want is to be heard. To feel like they’re important. Because they are to themselves. I think Ray comes to a realization of this being very exhausting. Trying to be powerful in a place that doesn’t really want her. Why is she doing all this work?
It’s cliche to say that a film’s score becomes a character in its own right, but Jay Wadley’s accompanying music does feel like a performance all its own. It’s through his score selections that the audience is put further into the mindset of Ray as she becomes enmeshed in the world of neighborly drama. The collaboration between Valia and Wadley didn’t begin on We Strangers or even on the short film they worked together on in 2017. No, they go further back. To the days of CollegeHumor.
Valia worked at CollegeHumor alongside director Josh Ruben, known for Heart Eyes and Werewolves Within. It was through Ruben that Valia and Wadley met and first worked together on Lucia, Before and After.
“It’s about a woman who’s trying to get an abortion in Texas and has to face a 24-hour waiting period. The short is basically what she’s doing while she’s waiting to get a solution. What a weird bureaucratic rule, right? I’m very obsessed with American bureaucracy and how it affects people on a very annoying, small scale. I think the only way to get through to people is to be like, this shit’s very bizarre, annoying, and why isn’t it easier?”
When it came time to score Lucia, Before and After, the team was out of money. There was no room for bands or orchestras, so Wadley was enlisted to create a score without any instruments. He tapped on his body, did different percussion rhythms, and made mouth noises in a way that became the score for Lucia.
Valia always knew she was going to call upon Wadley again when it came time for her to make her first feature film. Despite the fact that they had worked together before, Valia struggled with how to explain what she wanted the score to sound like.
“I noodle on the piano. I’m not a musician and I don’t speak that language,” Valia describes. “I feel most hindered by communication when it comes to music. I can only speak to emotion. A major direction was that this is all a third-person subjective movie. It’s all about Ray. It’s only about what she’s feeling. We’re always watching her. I wanted the music to match where she is and what she’s feeling.”
