All of Us Strangers – first-look review | Little White Lies

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All of Us Strangers – first-look review

01 Sep 2023

Words by Hannah Strong

Two men engaged in an intense, passionate argument, their faces illuminated by warm orange lighting.
Two men engaged in an intense, passionate argument, their faces illuminated by warm orange lighting.
Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal are elec­tric in Andrew Haigh’s twist on the mod­ern ghost sto­ry, adapt­ed from Taichi Yamada’s cult novel.

Since his impres­sive debut fea­ture Week­end, Andrew Haigh has qui­et­ly built a fine body of work that posi­tions him as one of the best British film­mak­ers work­ing today. From the affect­ing 45 Years to the grim, graph­ic tele­vi­sion series The North Water, he is seem­ing­ly capa­ble of any­thing he puts his mind to – such as adapt­ing Taichi Yamada’s 1987 nov­el Strangers’ into a stun­ning dra­ma that is anchored by a clutch of mes­meris­ing per­for­mances and an intense emo­tion­al core.

A sleek but cold sky­scraper in Croy­don is the pri­ma­ry set­ting for this Angli­cised ver­sion of the source mate­r­i­al. Screen­writer Adam (Andrew Scott) gazes out at the city’s orange sky­line, touch­ing from a dis­tance; a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the bar­ri­er he’s put between him­self and the rest of the world. He’s work­ing on a script about his par­ents, who died in 1983 when he was 12, but despite min­ing the phys­i­cal memen­toes he keeps, the words just won’t come.

A chance encounter with his mys­te­ri­ous, charm­ing down­stairs neigh­bour Har­ry (Paul Mescal), seem­ing­ly the only oth­er res­i­dent in the build­ing, invites the pos­si­bil­i­ty of romance into Adam’s life after years of soli­tude, and with it comes a strange new com­pli­ca­tion. When he returns to his child­hood home in search of inspi­ra­tion, Adam finds his par­ents exact­ly as they were before they died. His affa­ble father (Jamie Bell) and dot­ing moth­er (Claire Foy) greet him warm­ly, eager to catch up.

Their odd sub­ur­ban time cap­sule becomes an escape that Adam takes glad­ly. He trav­els out by train to vis­it this real­i­ty, where his moth­er still makes his favourite food, and his dad plays records that his own father liked to lis­ten to (‘I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire’ is a favourite, while Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s The Pow­er of Love’ plays a piv­otal role that will like­ly ush­er in a new gen­er­a­tion of fans.) The con­ver­sa­tions Adam shares with his par­ents are far-reach­ing and com­plex; when his moth­er asks why he doesn’t have a girl­friend yet, a bemused Adam realis­es los­ing them when he was young means he nev­er came out to them. The news forces a terse exchange with his moth­er where old atti­tudes clash with mod­ern sensibilities.

Mean­while, the process of recon­nec­tion seems to allow Adam to let love in. His blos­som­ing rela­tion­ship with Har­ry begins as a hook-up; a way for them to stave off the lone­li­ness of liv­ing in a seem­ing­ly for­got­ten tow­er block. But slow­ly some­thing between them thaws. Adam begins to open up about his par­ents and his lone­ly child­hood. Har­ry, who speaks with a syrupy, endear­ing North­ern accent and is forth­com­ing about his attrac­tion to Adam, keeps his own trou­bles sim­mer­ing beneath the service.

The chem­istry between Scott and Mescal in their scenes is atom­ic; where the old­er is shy and cagey, Har­ry is impos­si­bly world­ly, and just a lit­tle bit heart­break­ing as he deflects by bring­ing Adam out of his shell. There’s some­thing des­per­ate­ly sad in Mescal’s gaze that only begins to decode as the film slips into its dev­as­tat­ing final act, while Scott’s del­i­ca­cy is worlds away from the more bom­bas­tic per­for­mances he deliv­ered in Sher­lock or Fleabag – or even in his much-laud­ed Almei­da pro­duc­tion of Hamlet.

Here he is tasked with por­tray­ing a pro­tag­o­nist who is with­hold­ing and drift­ing, stuck – quite lit­er­al­ly – in the past, griev­ing for a life he lost, and a life he nev­er got to live. Scott ris­es to the chal­lenge, lost and lone­ly and love­ly, a lit­tle boy who simul­ta­ne­ous­ly grew up before he had to, while nev­er quite pro­cess­ing his phe­nom­e­nal loss.

It’s accu­rate to call All of Us Strangers a ghost sto­ry, but Haigh’s phan­toms at the cen­tre are far from the men­ac­ing Shirley Jack­son or Hen­ry James types. Instead, there’s a benev­o­lence to these man­i­fes­ta­tions of inse­cu­ri­ties and anx­i­eties; they are avatars of con­ver­sa­tions that were nev­er had, and time that was up too soon. One of Haigh’s great strengths as a film­mak­er is his abil­i­ty to fos­ter deep con­nec­tion between the audi­ence and his char­ac­ters, and the sear­ing ache of los­ing a loved one is beau­ti­ful­ly cap­tured here.

But so too does Haigh cap­ture the cathar­sis offered by pro­cess­ing one’s pain, and learn­ing to see your loved ones – par­tic­u­lar­ly your par­ents – as human beings, flawed and fal­li­ble like any­one else. Such a painful exca­va­tion is pro­found­ly mov­ing and often wrench­ing, but also ten­ta­tive­ly hope­ful, sug­gest­ing peace only comes from learn­ing to live with the melan­choly of miss­ing some­one, and to embrace con­nec­tion where you find it. It’s a ghost sto­ry, but it’s a love sto­ry too. One that will break your heart.

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