The Comfort of Strangers is a 1990 film directed by Paul Schrader. The screenplay is by Harold Pinter, adapted from a short novel by Ian McEwan. The music is by Angelo Badalamenti. The film stars Natasha Richardson, Christopher Walken, Rupert Everett and Helen Mirren. This is a list of film-related events in 1990. ... Films are produced by recording actual people and objects with cameras, or by creating them using animation techniques and/or special effects. ... The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ... Paul Schrader (born 22 July 1946 in Grand Rapids, Michigan) is a screenwriter and film director, renowned for his characters that fall into desperation while their world crumbles around them. ... A screenplay or script is a blueprint for producing a motion picture. ... Harold Pinter Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (born October 10, 1930) is a British playwright and theatre director. ... DeFoes Robinson Crusoe, Newspaper edition published in 1719 A novel (from French nouvelle, new) is an extended fictional narrative in prose. ... Ian McEwan (born June 21, 1948) is a British novelist, sometimes nicknamed Ian Macabre because of the nature of his early work. ... Angelo Badalamenti (born March 22, 1937) is a music composer, best known for his movie soundtrack work for surrealist movie director David Lynch. ... Natasha Richardson Natasha Richardson (born 11 May 1963 in London, England) is an English/American actress who played the title character in The Handmaids Tale, the 1990 film based on Margaret Atwoods dystopian novel. ... Christopher Walken in The Dogs of War (1981) Ronald Walken (born March 31, 1943), known professionally as Christopher Walken, is an American film, television, and theatre actor best known for playing menacing or psychologically damaged characters, but has occasionally used that image for comedic effect. ... Rupert James Hector Everett (born May 29, 1959) is a British actor. ... Mirren aged 24 in Age of Consent (1969) Dame Helen Mirren (born Ilyena Lydia Mironoff on July 26, 1945) is a British stage, television and movie actress. ...

Colin (Everett) and Mary (Richardson), a couple unsure of where their relationship is going, are on holiday in Venice where they meet Robert (Walken), a smooth bar owner who tells them stories about his aggressively masculine, abusive father and the humiliating revenge which Robert's three sisters took on both the father and Robert himself. Although Colin and Mary find Robert and his wife (Mirren) less than agreeable company, they find themselves drawn to the older couple, who turn out to be even more dangerous than they seem. Location within Italy Venice (Italian: Venezia), the city of canals, is the capital of the region of Veneto and of the province of Venice, 45°26′ N 12°19′ E, population 271,663 (census estimate 2004-01-01). ...

Schrader has said of McEwan's book that it is "terrific, but a little one-sided" and that he was not sure its theme - that "no amount of civilisation can overcome the fundamental hostility between men and women" - was correct. The film therefore uses Pinter's ambiguous dialogue to create a more nuanced set of characters.

Changes were also made to the character of Robert. In the book, Robert is a young thug with a gold chain and a pattern of pistols embroidered into his shirt; Schrader did not think an audience would believe Colin and Mary would go off with such a man, so Walken plays the character as a suave, middle-aged, white-suited cosmopolitan.