Film Title: Foreigner
Director: Ava Maria Safai
Writer: Ava Maria Safai
Cast: Rose Dehgan, Chloë MacLeod, Maryam Sadeghi, Ashkan Nejati, Talisa Mae Stewart, Victoria Wardell
Distribution: Raven Banner (World Sales)
Festival: Fantasia International Film Festival 2025 (World Premiere)
Review by: Mother of Movies
There’s something wickedly authentic about watching a teenager’s soul slowly leak out through bleached roots and borrowed identities. Ava Maria Safai’s feature debut, “Foreigner,” doesn’t just explore the immigrant experience; it dissects it with the precision of a horror surgeon, revealing the demons that attach themselves to our desperate need to belong.
Set in the flip-phone era of 2004, when low-rise jeans were scripture and blonde hair was gospel, we meet Yasamin, or Yasi, as she frantically insists, navigating the minefield of Canadian high school life after emigrating from Iran with her father and grandmother. Rose Dehgan delivers a performance that’s equal parts heartbreaking and unnerving, embodying that specific teenage desperation that makes you simultaneously want to shake her and hold her.
Content Advisory This review contains discussions of cultural assimilation, identity struggles, and supernatural themes. Some plot elements and character development are explored in detail. e ready for the dark, or step back for a spoiler-free ride.
When Assimilation Becomes Possession in a Foreigner’s Suburban Hell
The film’s genius lies in how seamlessly it transforms the typical “new girl trying to fit in” narrative into something far more sinister. When Yasi encounters Emily and Tristan at Bible camp, two girls who smile with the practiced precision of Stepford wives, we’re immediately thrust into territory that feels uncomfortably familiar. These aren’t just mean girls; they’re cultural vampires, sucking the authenticity out of anyone different enough to threaten their sanitized worldview. Safai’s background as a Canadian-Iranian artist bleeds through every frame, bringing an insider’s understanding to the micro-aggressions and macro-violence of forced assimilation.
When the girls casually dismiss Iran as “a third-world country,” it’s delivered with such cheerful malice that you can practically feel Yasi’s identity cracking like cheap foundation. The horror elements creep in gradually, almost imperceptibly. As Yasi dyes her hair blonde and shirks her traditional food in favor of Canadian ways, something genuinely supernatural begins to take hold. Her eyes literally turn blue, a transformation that’s both metaphorical and disturbingly literal. It’s body horror through cultural erasure, and it’s effective.
The Chaos of Cultural Code-Switching
The film’s mixed-language approach creates an unsettling rhythm that mirrors Yasi’s broken identity. Farsi and English blend and clash, creating a linguistic limbo that perfectly captures the immigrant experience of never quite belonging to either world. The chaotic music becomes another character, punctuating Yasi’s psychological unraveling with discordant beats that feel like a heartbeat losing its rhythm. Rose Dehgan navigates this linguistic maze in what appears to be an early career performance. She captures that specific teenage vulnerability that makes bad decisions feel inevitable, while also conveying the deeper cultural trauma of watching your heritage dissolve in the name of acceptance.
The supporting cast, particularly Chloë MacLeod as the queen bee and Maryam Sadeghi as Yasi’s grandmother, creates a coiling tension between old-world wisdom and new world cruelty. When Sadeghi’s character recognizes that a demon has attached itself to her granddaughter, it’s both supernatural horror and cultural commentary; sometimes, the old ways see dangers that contemporary society blindly ignores.
Horror That Hits Different When It’s Your Story
What makes Foreigner particularly effective is how it understands that supernatural possession doesn’t shock as much as the cultural possession that happens first. The demon doesn’t create Yasi’s transformation; it simply amplifies what was already happening.
It’s Get Out for the high school set, complete with the creeping realization that the real monsters look like everyone else. The film does stumble occasionally, and the final act becomes somewhat disjointed, bouncing between reality and nightmare in ways that don’t always land cleanly.
The film’s final act, where she becomes “Canadian” while still seeing herself in her white dress, is haunting precisely because it captures that immigrant double-consciousness that W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about, always seeing yourself through the eyes of others. The Mean Girls comparison is inevitable, but Foreigner goes deeper into the psychological violence of conformity. Where Tina Fey’s classic focused on the cruelty of popularity, Safai’s film examines the cruelty of cultural erasure.
Other films that touch on popularity are: Grafted | Sissy | Senior Year or if you like demons more, watch: Flesh of the Unforgiven or The Queen of Black Magic.
FOREIGNER is rated
2.5 Demons disguised as friends out of 5
Where to Watch Foreigner 2025
Foreigner
Director: Ava Maria Safai
Date Created: 2025-07-30 23:33
2.5
Pros
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Cons
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