Ozon's adaptation of *The Stranger* pales beside Visconti's, despite its faithfulness to Camus's text. The film's greatest misstep is its reduction of Meursault to a brooding, one-dimensional sociopath-a portrayal that feels at odds with my interpretation of the character. This isn't a critique of the actor Benjamin Voisin, however, he has been wrongly directed imho. Marcello Mastroianni's performance is masterful: his "actively passive" detachment, his content mechanical functioning without true comprehension, and his dreamlike disconnection from reality all shine through in the unbearable heat.
Having read the novel, I'm convinced Meursault is undiagnosed autistic. His peculiar, ('strange', hence The Stranger) behaviours, the very traits that seal his fate, strike me as more pathological than sociopathic. While critics often analyse him through philosophical or psychological frameworks, I find those readings unnecessarily convoluted. To me, Meursault is neither a nihilist nor a racist; he's simply a man whose mind and senses operate differently from the norm. Today we would call it Asperger's syndrome.
As for the film's added final scene-a departure from the book-it feels heavy-handed. The reference, likely a last-minute concession forced by the producers, to placate certain audiences, comes across as overly woke.
