All of Us Strangers review – a super­no­va of a film

A sleek but cold sky­scraper in Croy­don is the pri­ma­ry set­ting for Andrew Haigh’s queer adap­ta­tion of Taichi Yamada’s 1987 nov­el ​‘Strangers’. Screen­writer Adam (Andrew Scott) is 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 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. Affa­ble Dad (Jamie Bell) and dot­ing Mum (Claire Foy) greet him warm­ly, eager to catch up.

Mean­while, the process of recon­nec­tion allows Adam to let love in. His blos­som­ing rela­tion­ship with Har­ry begins as a hook-up; a way for them to stave off unspo­ken lone­li­ness. But slow­ly some­thing between them thaws. Adam begins to open up about his par­ents and his lone­ly child­hood. Har­ry, who speaks with a syrupy North­ern accent and is dis­arm­ing­ly 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 Adam 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.

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 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 is his abil­i­ty to fos­ter a deep con­nec­tion between the audi­ence and his char­ac­ters, and the sear­ing ache of los­ing a loved one is expert­ly 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. It’s a ghost sto­ry, but it’s a love sto­ry too. One that will break your heart.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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