Directed By Andrew Haigh

Starring – Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy

The Plot – One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam (Scott) has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry (Mescal), which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents (Foy and Jamie Bell), appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before.

Rated R for sexual content, adult language, and some drug use

All of Us Strangers | Official Trailer | Searchlight Pictures (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

The less you know about the particular framing devices and world-building of Haigh’s established setting here, the more awkwardly inaccessible the opening few interactions will be. That’s not a backhanded slight to Haigh’s direction, but rather an overwhelming praise for the uniquely breathtaking ways he conjures such themes as grief and especially loneliness, which come to define what feels like Andrew’s most personal film to date, where the director therepeutically explores unanswered questions and broken links to his past in ways that transpire beautifully on-screen. Because of such, the exposition finds clever and appealing ways of conveying vital information to the audience, with blink-and-you-might-miss-it details finding their ways into everything from the way Adam reacts to certain places, to even the varying degrees of chemistry between dynamics surrounding him, which help to vividly paint a reality of the events that happened long before this story took shape. Even in watching the marketing trailers for the film, I truly wasn’t prepared for what lie ahead in the crevices of Adam’s darkly devastating exploration, full of Charlie Kaufman-like details in the set decoration, as well as a lucidly entrancing presentation in production, which Haigh uses to craft sequences of overwhelming emotional depth. On the former, the film fits together like a puzzle of scattered pieces, and only when you make out the outline of what’s transpiring before our very eyes, can you truly appreciate scattered items and small measures of monumental magnitude that help illustrate such an introspectively absorbing character study in the life of a man who still very much lives in the past, with little prospect for a future. Likewise, the latter distinguishes itself with the tones of European new wave in soundtrack selections, as well as boldly blossoming color pallets in the lighting and intimacy of the cinematography, which each paint an almost euphoric sense to scenes so loaded with intimacy of varying degrees of definition. This certainly makes for what I feel is Haigh’s most ambitious production to date, with perfection in stylistic impulses that go a long way in garnering insight to the characters, but beyond that appraises value and meaning to gay relationships on screen, which are only recently beginning to receive the kind of respect in depiction that they so very much deserve. On that aspect, the dynamic between Adam and Harry is slightly underwritten during initial engagements, but quickly evolves into a warm and fearless forray for each of them, helping to break the situational loneliness of each man, which whether literally or figuratively sees each as the only occupants of this lusciously posh skyscraper apartment building. The dialogue is a bit juvenile between them at times, but perhaps as a way of outlining the immaturity of each character, which remains frozen in time for elements out of their control that have come to define them both, but the transcendal chemistry exuded never comes into question, as we see them living and growing together as emotional security blankets in one for the other, with this established setting feeling like the isolation factor that has simultaneously shut them off from the real world, yet one that has allowed them to find each other. The performances are exquisitly remarkable, primarily in Andrew Scott, who elicits elicits child-like wonder and curiousity in his approach to Adam, which articulates his lack of emotional growth from one fateful day that changed his life forever, as well as Claire Foy, who juggles timidness and tenderness while adapting to a new world that feels nothing like the one that she left thirty-five years prior. Scenes involving these two as Mother and Son were particularly touching and compelling, especially during vulnerable interactions, where Adam has the overwhelming task of explaining his gay lifestyle towards a parent who wasn’t alive when such realizations were discovered, and while Haigh could easily play these scenes as audience appealing in the way Foy could and should openly accept him, there are moments so tensely uncomfortable that they, like everything else in the film, feel ripe with only the kind of nuance and believability that could stem from someone who dealt with the same familial conflicts. Mescal and Bell are heavy hitters as well, just not as prominently focused on as their counterparts, with Mescal’s charms and meaningful sensitivity serving as the heavy lifting for Adam’s own sexual re-awakening, and Bell donning an unfamiliar stache and slacks in a Fatherly role that suits him well, especially with the kind of generosity and affirmation that all kids seek in earning the attention and respect from their Fathers.

NEGATIVES

While “All of Us Strangers” is an introspectively haunting look into love and longing, the film stumbles on its execution in a few key areas, which ultimately will keep this from being one of the year’s best by the end of 2024. For starters, the emotional complexity of the various tones was appreciated and well calculated in the expanse of their various evolutions, but some dramatic beats towards the film’s climax meander a bit longer than needed or expected, which leave the key moments of the film buried under this forcefully wallowing sensibility that doesn’t appeal particularly well to the sequences that they adorn. This isn’t to say that the sadness alienated me from the finished product, especially since I gave myself over to tears during a particular scene in the movie’s second act, just that when these scenes already articulated these ingredients firmly in the confines of the bleak and disparaging reveals, it continuously hammers home the same overbearing sentiment, which is sure to test certain audiences who have already been through the ringer for such a coldly damp consistency that makes the majority of Haigh’s work in this film, as well as others. This leads me to my other problem with the film, involving a last minute twist to the proceedings that feels like it comes out of left field in the worst kind of ways. I don’t say that for the unpredictability factor, as I actually called this development to myself very early on in the film’s initial building blocks, with framing and but rather for how it wastes away the growth and comfortability of Adam, in order to make him lonelier than he’s ever truly been. I’m all for bittersweet endings that unceremoniously challenge conventionalism in the expectations of the audience, but it’s attained in ways that feel tacked-on to the finished product, in turn unappealingly tapping into the self-deprecating side of Haigh’s writing and direction, which has seamingly always hated expected resolutions. Finally, though most of the sound designs are appropriate, especially during club sequences, the volume mixing for dialogue during quiet scenes felt a bit difficult to distinguish, perhaps as a result of English and Irish accents that adorn Scott and Mescal’s various deliveries. This, at least initially, created a disconnect in the set-ups of Adam and Harry’s blossoming relationship, and while I was still able to follow along accordingly with various developments in visual impulses alone, it would’ve been nice to latch onto some of those first few moments between them, especially in that they are tonally ripe with the shy awkwardness of two men with irrefutable feelings for one another.

OVERALL
“All of Us Strangers” is a personally intimate and introspectively haunting look into the elements of grief, love and loneliness, paid for by one of cinema’s most passionate artists. Though occasionally bogged down by extensive emotional meandering and an unnecessary last minute twist, the film steals your heart with earnest performances from a talented ensemble, as well as expressive direction from Haigh, who imbeds many of his own experiences to the character at the crossroads of past and present, which submerge with the kind of closure that feels anything but convenient.

My Grade: 8/10 or B+