_{Goodbye Stranger by Aaron Rookus}

Aaron Rookus’ directorial debut feature Goodbye Stranger* (screening in International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Limelight section) shows Amsterdam in a way which tourists won’t recognise. There are no canals or museums here. Instead, the film depicts the city as it is experienced by its young hero Paul (Martijn Lakemeier), the ultimate insider. He has a high flying job that he loves, as a playlist curator at a music company. Now, he is in the running to get an even better job in London. Young, smart, good looking and successful, Paul has the world (and Amsterdam) at his fingertips - or that is how it seems.

“We wanted the characters to live above reality, as if they were already sky high,” Rookus says of the many scenes in which Paul is shown on top of the world.

The idea for Goodbye Stranger came from producer Laurette Schillings at Topkapi Films. In 2016, she asked screenwriter Wander Theunis to come up with a story set in the music world. “That was the starting point, with lots of music and musicians in it,” remembers Rookus.

Theunis knew somebody who had worked at Spotify. That prompted the idea of the cocksure young music exec. Both wanted the story to have further layers. “The two of us really found each other in the common grounds of what it is to be a millennial,” says Rookus of his collaboration with Theunis.

The character of Paul, it turns out, is experiencing an identity crisis. He thinks he knows what he wants but scrape a little beneath the surface and he is exposed as being insecure about everything, from his love life to his career and what society (and his family) expect of him. “We’re just all trying to be somebody but it’s hard… especially with younger people in their 20s, there is a lot of pressure,” the 39-year-old director reflects on Paul’s 20-something angst.

Rookus isn’t part of Amsterdam’s music scene but he sees parallels with the film world. “I always hate that you meet so many people at parties and you automatically hear yourself saying ‘yeah, I’m doing this and I’m doing that.’ It is all about what you do and what’s next... especially in the creative industry. It’s all about being seen and what of your work is out there. That is what people are interested in,” the director reflects on the constant jostling for position and influence. “That’s a pressure that I really know well.”

Goodbye Stranger was shot in August 2021 in “a small gap of a few months” when Covid was in abeyance. That meant the bars, clubs and parks in Amsterdam were all open and buzzing.

Production company Topkapi Films was keen to make an arthouse film with crossover appeal. The producers had seen Rookus’ 2015 TV comedy drama A Good Life and felt its “style and tone of voice” would fit perfectly with Goodbye Stranger. “And for Wander [Theunis] and I to be a good match, which was absolutely true,” the director adds.

Casting was crucial. Rookus wanted an actor who could capture Paul’s charm, intelligence and his emotional neediness. Martijn Lakemeier, who first made his name as the teenage star of 2010 Dutch Oscar candidate Winter In Wartime*, sent in an audition tape. “I immediately knew it was him,” the director remembers. “He [Paul] is not a nice guy in the beginning of the film so we needed an actor who had enough charisma that you forgive him being an asshole. That is something Martijn can really pull off. He is handsome but not unapproachable. He is like the boy next door... he has a very accessible personality and presence.”

Claire Bender was chosen to play Paul’s girlfriend, Tessa, with whom he has a rocky relationship. “I knew her before... she’s a fantastic and intelligent actor, something different than you see on screen at the moment. I thought it was a very good combination. You could see they [Paul and Tessa] are not meant for each other but you can also understand that they have been living for two years together. You have to have that strange combination, people who don’t fit, but they don’t see it themselves.”

The film moves at a very fast tempo, as if taking its pace from the restless Paul, who is always on the move, cycling, running, rushing to his next gig, appointment or party.

“It’s a 24-hour film and I wanted to be as close to Paul as possible,” the director explains the “energetic and dynamic” approach. “I wanted the audience also to feel the pressure of the big city.” The screenplay was 115 pages but the actual film is only 82 minutes long. The aim was to “cut, cut, cut” so the story never dragged.

Rookus is a lecturer in film at the Utrecht University of the Arts as well as a screenwriter and director. He acknowledges, though, that the pressures on his time are mounting. He is now hard at work preparing his second feature project, The Idyll, which he has also scripted and is being made through Studio Ruba. He is also co-writing (with Jop Esmeijer) a KRO NCRV TV series for production company Pupkin, to be directed by Mischa Kamp.

Goodbye Stranger celebrates its world premiere in Rotterdam January 28 and releases in the Netherlands on April 20. Gusto Entertainment handles distribution.

Get a full overview of all Dutch films screening in the main programmes at IFFR 2023 by visiting our line-up page here.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund