Since Kirsten Lepore has done Adventure Time and has been the darling of Vimeo for ages, I doubt I get any cool points for being one of many people to follow her brilliant stop-motion work. Hi Stranger is not the most ambitious of her projects, nor complex, but it is still a very creative piece that is enjoyable to watch. Compared to some of her other work, a mostly static character is not the most challenging to animate, but there is a lot of effort and clever touches in here.
The overall impact of the film is an oddly soothing tone which is a little unsettling at first, but wins the viewer over. The content seems to be about the creator, the viewer, and the craft of creation itself – but in small reflective touches, there is no grand statement or spectacle here. The dialogue and the manner of delivery works really well, as too does the soundtrack (which turns out to be the Windows start-up music slowed down to a crawl). It may seem like a small whimsy of a film, but it is really just another reminder of how creative and talented Lepore is.
