All of Us Strangers

Contains spoilers

Andrew Haigh is a new director to me, and what a start to our cinematic relationship. A tight cast, Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy, a reasonable runtime of 1 hour and 45 minutes, and high expectations given its critically acclaimed reception.

The film begins with a wide shot of London before slowly revealing the reflection of Adam (Andrew Scott) who stares across the city deep in thought. He’s a struggling scriptwriter who spends his days trying to write but ends up on the sofa watching daytime TV and eating leftover Chinese food.

One night an alarm in the building goes off. Adam goes outside, alone, only to look up and see Harry (Paul Mescal) standing at the window of another flat. The camera pans up to show an enormous building full of flats, but only Adam and Harry’s lights are on.

Harry visits Adam, drunk, seeking company, but Adam doesn’t feel comfortable letting this man into his flat and his life, only to change his mind over the next few days and start a relationship. One of three the film is centred around.

If you’ve seen any of the film’s press tour, Scott and Mescal give you just a taste of their chemistry. They read each other so well, like dancing partners perfectly in sync. I became invested in them, their raw sexuality mixed with a wealth of emotional vulnerability.

Adam’s trying to write about his parents, who died in the 80s when he was young. He visits his childhood home in a scene that introduces his parents and the film’s supernatural theme. They’re played by Jamie Bell and Claire Foy and are the same age they were when they died – figments of his memory. These are the other relationships the film focuses on.

As the four of them delve deeper into their relationships, the film tells a tender, beautifully written cathartic story about grief, sexuality, and love.  

Scott brings so much to this performance. It reminded me of Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer, both have incredibly emotive, expressive eyes and carry enormous psychological weight. Scott plays Adam with a staggering level of vulnerability and gravitas. A character who is lonely and wants to love, and it’s a love you want to give him. I’m so surprised he was overlooked by the Baftas and Oscars.

The film oscillates between Adam’s relationship with his parents and Harry, exploring how homosexuality has developed since his parent’s time. They died when AIDS was a life-threatening illness, so have a more conservative and concerned view that Adam shares having grown up in that time.

With Harry, he finds the freedom to be himself after much reclusive behaviour. Harry is a younger, open, liberal character in an age where the rights for homosexuality are largely celebrated rather than shunned. The two of them debate words like queer and gay, and how their connotations have changed over time from demeaning to empowering as they take control back.

The film presents a fascinating idea. Through Adam’s many discussions with his parents he can growth and grief now he’s old enough to understand. As a mechanism for development, the concept of the inner child allows greater creative freedom, and by creating their dialogue, it enables him to address the questions he has held onto and which have stunted his growth. 

To take it a step further, he believes he has a realistic view of his parents so knows how they would interact. For when he tells his mother he is gay, her reaction is one realistic of the 80s. She doesn’t immediately know how to merge the ideas of what homosexuality means with her son. Conveying this first as concern that to be gay is to be isolated, which is that Adam’s life is, but not as a clear direct consequence, and then a need to remove him from the house so they can both process this revelation. It’s a heart-breaking, raw, and honest moment.  

He has similar conversations with his father, questioning why, when Adam was young and crying, his father didn’t comfort him. Their relationship is different, it initially feels like two men having a mature conversation. But as Adam starts understands his father, those walls are broken down and Adam transitions into a small boy again wanting his father’s love.

While Scott and Mescal are rightfully being praised, Claire Foy and Jamie Bell also deserve much applause for their devastatingly moving performances.

The cinematography is exquisite and only elevates the film. From the first scene, the spectral presence of Adam starring across the city and establishes his isolation. He lives in London, yet he’s not part of the city, his flat is mostly dark, with artificial light from the TV, or the distant lights of the city which Adam is continually positioned in front of.

The film uses light, sound, and set designs to explore the creative. When Harry and Adam go clubbing, they take drugs. It begins as a fun trip, but when Adam, more liberated than ever, falls down the rabbit hole of his subconscious, he relives the night his parents died. Dressed as his inner child he crawls into bed with his parents. The conversation he then has with his mother is a non-naturalist cathartic moment to process his grief, one which may have needed the push of drugs to confront. 

The film is a many layered triumph about coming to terms with grief. It’s a journey for Adam, a cathartic process to understand who he is, and who his parents were in order to heal and move on. It’s a trait common with writers as the act of writing is therapeutic means to comprehend one’s internal discussion to enable growth and closure. To delve into the psyche of a character and produce something so beautifully sad but moving is to create something powerful.

Haig directed and wrote this film during lockdown, and you can see that. There’s so much meticulous work here that I can imagine him becoming totally consumed by the subject matter. Without having researched it, I dare say it was as equally cathartic for him to make it, as some will find watching it. It’s so honest and raw.

OVERALL *****

A film that explores grief, loss, desire, and homosexuality in a perfectly wrapped ensemble. It’s a devastating yet rewarding film that deserves more attention. Everyone understood the assignment and delivered.