All of Us Strangers ★★★★

Few director-writers are truly capable of expressing the weight that life carries. Introduced to indie film audiences through his breakout film Weekend, Andrew Haigh tells stories about people at the most critical moments in their lives. His characters are introspective, and typically undergo a transformation as they work through their crises and arrive at self-discovery. Despite this, Haigh’s films are not melodrama – they revolve around personal trauma and portray the challenges his characters experience in a deeply relatable and non-exaggerated manner.

Haigh’s latest film All of Us Strangers centers on Adam (Andrew Scott), a man who lives in London in a seemingly empty apartment building. When the fire alarm goes off, Adam exits the building alone. Looking at his building from below, he sees Harry (Paul Mescal) through Harry’s window and the pair lock eyes. Harry, evidently, is unconcerned by the fire alarm. The fire alarm sparks a chance encounter between the two as Harry knocks on Adam’s door after Adam has returned to his room. Harry has been drinking, the bottle in his hand not needed to portray him as drunk, and comes off as sultry at best, creepy at worst. Adam decides not to let him in, but there’s a connection between the two that starts to form that night.

Before we can wonder about the emptiness of Adam’s apartment building or Harry’s odd introduction, Andrew Haigh gives us something else to think about. We come to learn that Adam has lost his parents in a car accident when he was young. The event perhaps explains Adam’s reserved and somber nature – Adam feels alone in his life.

When searching for inspiration for a screenplay he is writing, Adam decides to visit the suburbs where he grew up. To his surprise, he spots his father and follows him to his childhood home. Adam’s mother is there and Adam is stunned. His parents have not aged since the car accident that killed them and his childhood home is likewise unchanged. Meeting his parents again is a surreal experience, all the more so given that they don’t know anything about Adam’s life following their death. His reintroduction to his parents is a novel take on a ghost story, and Haigh introduces his own influence on the source material All of Us Strangers is based on, the Tachi Yamada novel Strangers.

Adam’s parents are played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell who bring a saddened sensitivity to their roles. They are thrilled to have reconnected with their son, but recognize that Adam has grown up and has had a life of new experiences separate from them. In a sense, Adam has to reintroduce himself to his parents and share where he lives, his occupation, and, finally, come out as gay to them. Adam’s mom, having passed away at the start of the AIDS crisis, is less than pleased – to put it generously – by her son’s admission as her views on homosexuality have been uninfluenced by cultural changes that have occurred since. Still, he is her son, and their time together becomes melancholic as they reminisce about Adam’s childhood.

Adam was bullied in school and his father did not know how to comfort him. Likewise, Andrew’s mother remarks that Adam often felt alone or scared growing up. Leading up to his parents’ death, Adam became emotionally distant from his parents as most teenagers do. The difference being for Adam that he never had the opportunity to resolve this distance between him and his parents until now. Adam’s discussions with his parents are cathartic, but they also reopen old wounds. Adam becomes cognizant that his budding relationship with Harry and the barriers he has put up between them are largely due to the immense loneliness he felt when his parents died as well as feeling isolated and ‘different’ for being gay. An adult now, Adam has formed his own personal identity but meeting his parents and Harry challenges Adam’s preconceptions and notions about grief and love.

Playing the role of Adam, Andrew Scott rises to the occasion in playing a vulnerable yet strong man. Scott is able to show the impact of Adam’s formative experiences and his performance is so grand that seeing Adam is one of the few times you can watch a movie and see a person, not a character. Almost all of us have experienced grief in some form, and Andrew Scott’s performance is one that many will find relatable. Paul Mescal is no slouch either in the role of Harry. Adam and Harry bond over their shared experience of growing up as gay men and the isolation they felt from their peers. Harry copes in a different way than Adam, preferring alcohol to numb his pain.

As Adam continues to meet with his parents and become close with them again, he and his parent’s thoughts can’t help but linger on their death. It’s disheartening to see them knowing their accident and knowing they weren’t there for Adam as he was growing up. They can see the impact of their absence. All of Us Strangers leads audiences to ponder our own life choices and development, and wonder what we would have done differently in our personal relationships if we were given another chance. It’s rare that a film can make us consider our own lives and look inwards with such scrutiny as cinema is often a place for escape. This thoughtful and emotionally penetrating film affirms Andrew Haigh as one of the best screenwriters of his generation and is one that is sure to linger on the mind after viewing.