Albert Camus wrote L’Étranger in 1942 while France was occupied and everyone in the country was busy performing whatever emotion or ideology would keep them alive for one more day. The novel is only 120 pages long, yet for eighty-three years it has made readers profoundly uncomfortable because it refuses to give them the emotional payoff they expect from fiction. The protagonist, Meursault, shoots an Arab on a beach for no obvious dramatic reason, stands trial, and is sentenced to death. The murder itself, however, is almost a footnote in the courtroom. What the prosecutor obsesses over is that Meursault did not cry at his mother’s funeral, that he went swimming and began a casual sexual relationship the very next day, that he helped his neighbor write a letter to an ex-girlfriend without pausing to condemn the neighbor’s behavior, and that when the court demands a tearful display of remorse he simply says he feels none. The killing on the beach is the legal pretext; the real crime is that Meursault will not perform grief, love, or regret on command.

Almost every English teacher I have ever heard from reduces the book to “existential alienation” or “the absurdity of life” because admitting the actual thesis would make the room extremely uncomfortable. There is, however, at least one exception that proves the rule. Luckily, my high-school English teacher was one who refused to defang the novel. He stood in front of thirty teenagers and said, plainly, that the book is about a man who refuses to fake emotions and is executed for it. He admitted the downsides of that stance (the universe really is indifferent, and choosing total honesty can leave you isolated or worse), but he also let us see the appeal: in a world that demands constant emotional theater, Meursault’s refusal is a kind of freedom most people never dare to imagine. That honesty is the reason L’Étranger remains my favorite piece of narrative literature decades later. Most classrooms can’t handle that conversation, so they retreat to safe abstractions. My teacher gave us the real thing, and I will always be grateful for that.

Every previous cinematic adaptation has done exactly what the timid classrooms do: it has tried to soften the indictment. Visconti’s 1967 film turned Meursault into a brooding, tragic figure so audiences could feel sorry for him instead of threatened by him. American stage versions add childhood trauma or eleventh-hour breakdowns so nobody has to confront the fact that Meursault is perfectly rational and simply refuses to lie about his emotions. François Ozon, according to everything coming out of the Paris pre-production offices in late 2025, finally understands that the only honest way to film L’Étranger is to leave Meursault completely unexplained, the same way my teacher left him unexplained—no diagnosis, no apology, just the facts and the consequences.

There will be no voice-over narration, no flashbacks to an abusive childhood, no lingering close-ups of tears forming in the final scene with the chaplain. Ozon has reportedly told his writing team that any attempt to “humanize” Meursault in the conventional sense will be thrown out immediately. The goal is to force the audience to feel exactly what the jury feels: pure rage at a man who refuses to give them the emotional reaction they believe they are owed.

That is why this adaptation has the potential to be the most politically radioactive European film in decades. We now live in a world where not posting the approved flag or slogan within forty-eight hours of a tragedy is treated as moral complicity. Where refusing to start every meeting with a land acknowledgment or a pronoun round is taken as aggression. Where job applications and dating profiles alike demand public displays of the correct beliefs and any hesitation is punished with cancellation or ostracism. Meursault’s refusal to play along is no longer an abstract philosophical stance; it is the daily reality of millions of people who have realized that survival in 2025 often requires mastering the art of crying on cue about things you don’t actually care about.

If Ozon films the trial scene exactly as written (with the prosecutor screaming that this man has no soul because he failed to weep at the appointed time, and Meursault simply staring back in silence), half the audience will recognize their own lives on screen and the other half will want him guillotined for the same reason the jury does. There will be no comforting psychological diagnosis to hide behind, no swelling strings to tell you how to feel. There will just be the cold machinery of a society that demands emotional theater as proof of humanity and is perfectly willing to kill you when you refuse to perform.

The final speech, in which Meursault declares that he has been right all along and hopes the crowd at his execution will greet him with cries of hatred, is routinely misread as nihilistic despair. It is the opposite. It is the moment he finally achieves total clarity: the universe is indifferent, most human emotions are performative, and the only honest response is to stop pretending. He is at peace for the first time in the entire book, and he wants the crowd’s hatred because it is the ultimate confirmation that he has rejected the collective lie.

If Ozon leaves that speech uncut, delivered flatly under harsh prison light with no tragic music or redemptive tear, the film will be denounced as fascist apologia by every legacy outlet still pretending to be neutral. Campuses will try to ban screenings. Critics will demand content warnings. That reaction will simply prove Camus correct: the honest man is still the most dangerous creature alive.