Fantasia International Film Festival 2025 – Imagine if you blended Heathers with Mean Girls and added a dash of horror. That’s essentially what you have with writer/director Ava Maria Safai’s Foreigner. Its perspective, however, makes it stand out from other teen comedies. The film centers its narrative on an Iranian teen who wants desperately to fit into her new home country of Canada. The result is a powerful and at times funny exploration of the immigrant experience.
Set in 2004, the film stars Rose Dehgan as Yasamin. She lives with her dad, Ali (Ashkan Nejati), and her grandmother, Zoreh (Maryam Sadeghi). Yasamin spends her days watching sitcoms over and over again to practice her English. Before her first day of school begins, she frets about the strength of her English and how others will view her. Dehgan portrays Yasamin with such vulnerability that it makes it easy for the viewer to root for her. We all like underdogs.
On her first day of school, Yasamin meets three overly cheery classmates who are obsessed with Yasamin’s heritage. Rachel (Chloë MacLeod) is the queen bee, and her followers include Kristen (Talisa Mae Stewart) and Emly (Victoria Wardell). When the trio of mean girls is first introduced, Safai frames them in similar outfits, with tight shots of their faces and their creepy smiles. It’s one of the most bizarre and startling sequences in the film. As the film progresses, Rachel especially encourages Yasamin to forsake her own heritage and to look, well, white. Yasamin even dyes her hair blonde.
From the film’s opening minutes, Safai centers much of the film around the concept of identity. There’s a commercial for blonde hair dye that kicks off the film. Before Yasamin goes to school, she refuses to bring a traditional Iranian dish that her grandmother packed for her. She sheds more and more of her identity to fit in, and it has adverse consequences, including distancing herself from her family and straining her relationship with her father and grandmother. The most harrowing sequence occurs when Yasamin dyes her hair blonde. It very much feels like a long and painful process. During the film’s closing minutes, the feature leans into some possession tropes, but only to again address identity.
Meanwhile, Rachel and her two followers make compelling villains. From the outset, Rachel bombards Yasamin with a series of questions about her identity. It doesn’t exactly make the new student feel welcome, and it certainly makes her more conscious about her brown skin, dark hair, and accent. We’ve seen these sorts of mean girls in plenty of films before, but again, it’s Yasamin’s POV that makes this film so unique.
Foreigner is a bold and moving film that combines the familiar teen comedy genre with dashes of horror and an immigrant’s perspective. This feature is incredibly timely and relevant. Right now, especially, we need stories like this to be told.
