All Of Us Strangers movie review: Andrew Haigh addresses love, family, and previous suffering with lyrical intensity, aided by an outstanding performance from Andrew Scott.
All of Us Strangers movie review: How does the world differ for LGBTQ people? Ask any homosexual man about their relationship with their parents, and there will be no easy answers. Many people continue to be unable to reach the shaky, ephemeral space for LGBT partnerships to exist openly and be accepted by their loved ones. There’s coming out, and there’s no going back. A gay man may just be different because he has not been heard long enough, and thus has forgotten what it is like to be heard, or even seen for who he is. These are some of the questions that drive the new drama, All Of Us Strangers.
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A delicate balance threatens to detract from the beauty of Andrew Haigh’s fifth feature, a picture that refuses to be pigeonholed into a specific genre. It’s a ghost story wrapped in a love narrative. In the hands of a lesser director, the excitement of the former might have swamped the vitality of the latter, but the British writer-director manages to bring these two components together with deft precision and passion. The more you think about it, the bigger All Of Us Strangers becomes. You can tell right away that this is a deeply personal narrative.
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A wonderful adaption
Haigh loosely adapts Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers, which was previously adapted into a Japanese film titled The Discarnates. The focus here is on Adam (Andrew Scott), a lonely gay guy in his forties who never had the opportunity to come out to his parents. They had died in a vehicle accident when he was only eleven. However, one evening, Adam finds himself returning to the familiar suburbia, where he meets them again (played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell). Both mother and father live in the modest house as is. They are still stuck in the 1980s.
The premise
Back in his isolated London building, a remarkable connection develops with the sole other resident, the much younger and more attractive Harry (Paul Mescal). Adam first rejects any relationship with him, but Harry charms his way into his apartment, where the two men exchange the lightest of kisses, guiding each other along the way. Adam discovers that Harry, too, is lonely, having cut off contact with his family and lived primarily alone.
Adam is frequently lured back to his parents’ house, even as his friendship with Harry develops. Andrew Scott’s presence serves as an anchor in this trip between the past and the present, connecting the loops of dreams and recollections, reality and illusion. Adam’s trauma is deep, almost causing him to care less about himself. Haigh’s extremely empathetic and tender direction in the sequences with Harry and his parents gives him the opportunity to eventually come out to them and express his feelings. Emilie Levienaise–Farrouch’s exquisite composition cuts through many of these sentiments of love and longing.
A fantastic cast.
The quartet of performers is significantly responsible for how well everything works. Haigh assembles a spectacular cast to bring this heartbreaking tragedy to life. Jamie Bell and Claire Foy work brilliantly together: a late moment by the Christmas tree is noteworthy for the way Foy covers deep emotions with the humming of ‘Always on my Mind’. As Harry, Paul Mescal is in scene-stealing form, rising to the occasion anytime Jamie Ramsay’s delicate camerawork comes close to his face. Yet so much of All of Us Strangers succeeds because of Andrew Scott, who outdoes himself with a passionately intellectual and sensitive performance. I’m not sure how he’s not a lock for a Best Actor nomination at the Oscars.
The way All of Us Strangers intertwines reality and the ghost narrative makes the impossible appear amazingly unique and important. Yes, there is a predicament, but Haigh addresses the tough issues with remarkable finesse, trying to bridge the generation gap between parents and children. To love, to surrender to all of its questions, joys, and agonies, is arguably the most fundamental form of life energy. Haigh’s courageous and beautiful ghost story is based on that idea, and it argues that every inch of that passion is worth the work and anguish.
