Less of a Stranger Review: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5)
Less of a Stranger tells the story of Polish rock legend Jan Borysewicz with honest intentions but falls into every predictable biopic trap in the book, leaving a genuinely fascinating story feeling surprisingly flat.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2/5)
Platform: Netflix
Genre: Biopic, Drama
Language: Polish
Director: Kristoffer Rus
Cast: Mikolaj Bukrewicz, Marcel Barra, Kinga Preis
There are already far too many musical biopics out there, and Netflix’s Less of a Stranger, known in Polish as Mniej Obcy, does little to break that pattern. The film tells the story of Jan Borysewicz, guitarist and founder of the legendary 80s Polish rock band Lady Pank.
While there is genuinely interesting history buried within it, particularly for anyone unfamiliar with Communist era Poland, the film itself plays out as a fairly bland, formulaic retelling that could easily be about any struggling musician from any era.
Like so many biopic subjects before him, Borysewicz, played by Mikolaj Bukrewicz, grew up under genuinely difficult circumstances, shaped by both the strict conservatism of a Catholic upbringing and the oppressive weight of Communist rule, alongside multiple personal family tragedies.
The film leans heavily into his strained relationship with his father as its central emotional conflict, but that thread never rises above fairly predictable territory.
Where the film really falls short is in how little it actually engages with the political backdrop surrounding Borysewicz’s life.
The movie opens with police violently shutting down a Lady Pank concert for playing government-censored music, a genuinely compelling moment, but from there, the political tension around him mostly fades into background dressing rather than something Borysewicz actively grapples with. Martial law and military curfews are present, but they rarely feel like forces shaping the character in any meaningful way.
The film’s handling of Catholicism’s influence on his life fares similarly, touching on one early traumatic scene before settling into vague, repetitive monologues about faith that never dig particularly deep.
Structurally, Less of a Stranger follows the most basic biopic template imaginable: an opening hook, a childhood flashback, a supportive mother, a string of early wins, predictable setbacks, and then, somewhat strangely, not much of anything by the film’s end.
Perhaps most surprising is that the movie never actually shows Lady Pank’s genuine commercial success, including their biggest hit Minus Zero, which played in rotation on MTV in 1985. That is a genuinely compelling piece of music history, and it is simply not the story the film chooses to tell.
The soundtrack mixes Lady Pank’s actual music with a fair amount of American rock, likely meant to highlight what Borysewicz found cool at the time, though for non-Polish speaking viewers, it mostly just creates a slightly disorienting wait for familiar songs to show up again. The film’s constant blue and yellow color filters also feel like an unnecessary visual choice, especially since the costumes and hairstyles already do plenty of work establishing the 1980s setting on their own.
To his credit, Borysewicz himself reportedly asked that the film not sugarcoat anything about his life, mistakes included, and director Kristoffer Rus clearly took that instruction seriously.
Lead actor Mikolaj Bukrewicz, a real guitarist himself, brings genuine authenticity to the instrument on screen, and his performance earned him the Film Visionary award at the Gdynia Polish Film Festival, where the film also won for best visual effects. Still, critics at that festival noted the film’s voice-over narration often over-explains what the visuals had already made clear.
For Polish audiences, Lady Pank’s music likely carries decades of nostalgic weight that Netflix’s international viewers simply will not have access to, which makes the film’s reliance on that emotional shorthand feel even thinner outside Poland.
In the end, Less of a Stranger offers a reasonably interesting history lesson about rock music under Communist rule, but as a character study, it rarely rises above the most predictable version of itself.
If modern horror or gripping thrillers are more your pace this week, our review of Carrie and our review of Inside the Circle are both worth checking out too.