THE STRANGER-Film based on Camus's Existentialist Novel is a Snooze

For those erudite snobs who want to cross Proust or Camus off their intended reading list, here's a hall pass to cross Camus' existentialist novel off your eventual to do list. Life is too short to spend it on pretentious pretense of expected elevated literature or films. However, if you're still a masochist, this 2025 black/white Neo-noir drama is probably more palpable than most pompous productions now streaming on Fandango. The cinematography captures the 1930s French-colonized Algeria in stark splendor and cold dissonance.  The French language film features Benjamin Voisin as Meursault, as the handsome loner whose persistent dissociation is puzzling more than it's troubling.  Meursault gets a short leave of absence from his clerical position to attend the funeral of his mother. A stoic Meursault shows little emotion except for an appreciation for coffee and a smoke. While on leave he is reunited with a past girlfriend, Marie (a luminescent Rebecca Marder).  The two make a handsome couple and the scene where the two rest on a raft in their set bathing suits shows promise of burgeoning passion. However, the sheer absurdity of Meursault's inane affability without conviction to marrying Maria is exasperating.  So too are his dissociations when regarding his mother's passing and his vacuous responses towards defending himself on trial for the unwarranted cold blooded murder of a male beach comber caused head scratching stupor.  Fueling frustration towards Meursault bewildering detachment is his failure to register rancor or empathy for his neighbor who cruelly beats his dog or when he bemoans the dog's absence.  Perhaps, my dismal response to the so called lofty existentialism themes reflects more on my more pedestrian tastes than those possessing arcane philosophical leanings.  But, at best, I know what I like, what I don't and I'm not afraid to who it.  THE STRANGER is a zzzzzzzzz snooze fest whose irrational idea is irrational at best.