Spoiler Warning
If the cast list of the two most beloved and arguably saddest men in primetime TV was not enough, Andrew Haigh’s new film “All of Us Strangers,” with its dragging eerie music and overly saturated color grading right from the start, clearly indicated that I was in for a devastating watch. Although the actors in Fleabag’s “Hot Priest” and Normal People’s “Connell Waldron” seemed to switch roles in this film, Paul Mescal was the flirty guy with a possible drinking problem, and Andrew Scott was the “misfit” writer who has trouble connecting with people. This, of course, is just a testament to both actors’ exceptional ability to seamlessly blend into every role that comes their way.
Set in modern-day London, Adam (Andrew Scott) is a screenwriter for films and TV, and is quite well-off. He lives a quiet, peaceful life by himself and spends his days watching reruns of old TV shows and live performances of Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Until Harry (Paul Mescal) comes into the picture or when he decides to write about his parents.
There are subtle elements of surrealism in it from the beginning.
For example, the huge skyscraper that they live in doesn’t seem to have any tenants. They, more specifically Harry, do acknowledge it from time to time, mentioning how unusually quiet it was in that place. Even when the smoke alarm goes off, only one guy (Adam) seems to come down and only one room seems to light up, and you would be correct in guessing that that is Harry’s apartment.
The story isn’t necessarily a love story. There is no tension or build-up when immediately after watching Adam from about 20 stories high, Harry comes along with a bottle of whiskey and not-so-subtle intentions, though only to have the door politely closed in his face. This is where we see another character, a man, actively interacting with Adam after about half an hour into the movie. He takes him to his home, introduces him to a woman, and just as we think he might be a potential love interest, he starts to call Adam son.
So another big reveal comes up – Adam’s parents are dead. They died in a car crash when he was 12. Of course, this is not much of a spoiler.
Adam is 40-something-year-old and his parents look roughly the same age, and it is clear that this is because Adam doesn’t know how to envision them as older people. As he has never seen them older, they haven’t grown older. The timeline makes sense as Adam spends most of his time listening to music exclusively from that era, like the Pet Shop Boys or the Ink Spots.
Adam has decided to open Pandora’s box. He has decided to write about his parents, who had died “not the most original of deaths” in a car crash after purposefully not thinking about it for years. There are a lot of unresolved issues there like how his parents didn’t know he was gay and that his father never checked up on him when he came home from school on the verge of tears.
Being gay in the 80s was not taken well. There was the AIDS epidemic and the civil rights movement. His parents wouldn’t have taken this lightly. His mother’s denial and his father’s realization, both were portrayed beautifully by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, leading to eventual acceptance of Adam’s sexuality. Maybe he did project his wishful thinking onto his dead parents but with time, maybe they would have understood.
“Somehow I love you more, now that I know you”, his father says.
This brings us to the overarching theme of the film, the uncertainty of life, and whether we get time or not.
Adam’s mother admits that she wasn’t the best mother in the world, but she never paid any mind to it. She always thought she’d get better at it, given more time. Given more time. Adam brings up their fighting often, even on the day of their death. His mother asks if they made up. And he delivers the most simple but devastating line.
“We didn’t have to make up. We were together”
Andrew Scott portrays Adam’s melancholy and solitude in a poignant manner. Even during the intimate scenes, the character is perfectly captured. Adam has a nervous laughter, whereas Harry’s laughter is more relaxed. Owing to their shared experiences that come from being queer, or just being two lonely people, they seem to fall into place very easily and get used to being in each other’s space. However, they do have their baggage and not-so-healthy ways of coping with them. Harry resorts to drugs and alcohol, and Adam to obsessive clinginess to memories.
Adam knows if he wants this relationship to last, he has to “let him in” on his childhood memories and unhealed traumas. This figurative “let him in” is shown very literally by Haigh in his hauntingly beautiful direction as it gives rise to the questioning that Adam’s narration was unreliable all along. These made-up-in-his-head sequences don’t take away from the relatability of the real world but instead intensified the very real themes of all our lives. We can never really escape grief. With profound loss comes profound grief and the myriad of ways to process it, or not process it in this case. The art of letting go, moving on, and doing it all over again.
Andrew Haigh’s exceptional screenwriting and cinematography, along with the direction portrayed in the way the reality and dream sequences often mesh, dreams inside a dream and their unraveling, makes you question whether or not what you are seeing is real. It only adds to the overall surreal atmosphere.
His storytelling gift is also reflected in nuances like picking the music. Once I paid attention to the lyrics while listening to the soundtrack after watching the film, it cleverly foreshadows what is to come. The soundtrack which is mostly music from the 80s can be explained when we see that his parents are both musical people and his experience with his parents ended there. He never really moved on.
All of these directorial decisions, exceptional writing, and its perfect demonstration through acting make All of Us Strangers a must-watch for all. It has already won many accolades like BAFTAs and undoubtedly will win more. All of Us Strangers is a beautifully poignant film exploring the ways we process loss. It provides a deep and melancholic insight into how unresolved childhood traumas can affect your way of life even years after having lived them. The film’s unique and surreal portrayal of grief never takes away from being relatable and having our deepest fears portrayed on the screen, navigating a life without our loved ones.
