All of Us Strangers – first-look review

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.