relative strangers

[keannu]

What is "relative strangers"? Not close ones or strangers related to something?

go3mo3-46
ex) On the first day of shooting for The 39 Steps in 1935, Hitchcock’s two leads, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat, arrived on the set feeling a little tense. That day they were to act in one of the movie’s more complex scenes: playing relative strangers who had gotten handcuffed together earlier in the plot and, still handcuffed, were forced to run through the Scottish countryside to escape the film’s villains. Hitchcock had given them no real sign of how he wanted them to act the scene. Carroll in particular was bothered by the director’s behavior.

[bhaisahab]

What is "relative strangers"? Not close ones or strangers related to something?

go3mo3-46
ex) On the first day of shooting for The 39 Steps in 1935, Hitchcock’s two leads, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat, arrived on the set feeling a little tense. That day they were to act in one of the movie’s more complex scenes: playing relative strangers who had gotten handcuffed together earlier in the plot and, still handcuffed, were forced to run through the Scottish countryside to escape the film’s villains. Hitchcock had given them no real sign of how he wanted them to act the scene. Carroll in particular was bothered by the director’s behavior.

People who are "relative strangers" to each other are not complete strangers. They may have encountered one another at some time in the past but don't really know each other.