All Of Us Strangers - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

When it comes to gay and queer representation on film, you’ll find the opinions vary wildly on who should be allowed to represent these characters on the screen. While some advocates for the LGBTQ community insist that they need to hire only openly queer actors and actresses for these roles, others are more open to seeing straight performers embody the characters. Whatever your position or thoughts are on this issue, a new film from Andrew Haigh called All Of Us Strangers will be headed to theatres next month from Searchlight Pictures and is bound to get people talking. The two lead stars of the film are Andrew Scott, who is gay, and Paul Mescal, who is not. Whatever your stand is on the debate of representation, what is not up for debate is the fantastic chemistry between these two. As the film explores the relationship between the two men, as well as the themes of homosexuality and loneliness, a layer of fantasy gets woven into the plot that reminded me of the film Petite Maman from a couple years ago. While the finale will leave some viewers frustrated and maybe even perplexed, there’s a wonderful and delicate story full of moments that’ll tug at even the firmest of heart strings. So next month when it finally releases wide, don’t be afraid to talk with All Of Us Strangers.

SYNOPSIS - As the film opens, we see a cityscape that we later learn is London, it sits against the deep blue sky of a late twilight sun, the light keeping the city lit just enough for the clouds to imbue the various shades and colors of a beautiful evening. As we observe the city, a double exposure begins to come through of a man’s face and neck, we see him from the side, straight faced and somber, we slowly begin to see the main protagonist, Adam (Andrew Scott). After a few moments the city view cuts and we’re taken to an apartment, Adam is sitting in front of a laptop, he’s a screenwriter and is starting a new screenplay. He leans forward with his fingers on the keyboard as if he’s about to start typing something, lingers there a few moments, but after a while he sits back in his chair without a single keystroke. We then watch him laying on his couch eating crackers, he finally gets up and goes to the fridge, looks at a few containers of takeout before extracting one from it's shelf and opening it. Through the first few minutes of introduction we get a sense of solitude, the music that fades in and out is ethereal in nature but almost unnoticeable. Suddenly, with the refrigerator still open, a fire alarm begins loudly sounding, he turns his head slightly and he stands there a moment processing what is happening. Next we see Adam walking out the door and going outside, the tall apartment building behind him, it’s dark now, the fire alarms continues sounding in the background. As he gets a short distance away from his building the alarm stops, he turns back around and looks up. The building is mostly darkened but our eyes slide to the left, one flat about halfway up is illuminated in a bluish hue, a figure stands at the window and looks down, seemingly at Adam. 

When he returns to his apartment, someone knocks on his door, he opens and a handsome man with shaggy hair and a mustache stands in his doorway and says, “I saw you looking at me from the street. I’m Harry.” Harry (Paul Mescal) shakes Adam’s hand in a lingering way, the men speak for a minute with Harry frequently breaking eye contact and looking down awkwardly. Harry offers Adam a drink motioning to the half empty bottle of alcohol he’s carrying, which Adam declines, but it’s fair to say that Harry is in a state of inebriation. Harry finally invites himself in but Adam says, “I don’t think that’s a good idea”, their conversation concludes and Adam walks back and sits down on his couch, looking back at the door. The next day, after  another failed attempt to begin his screenplay, Adam gets a bin out from under his bed and begins to go through items from his childhood. The camera shows us that down below his window, a train is passing by and the next thing we know, Adam is on a train. The light shining in through the trees out the train window and with his reflection, we get the feeling of tranquility but the music again gives us a sense of something surreal happening. Adam walks around and finally sees a house, he stands in front of it and holds up an old photo of the same house, this is the house he grew up in. He continues walking after visiting some secluded woods, he closes his eyes in a clearing and when he opens them, he turns around to see a man by the trees who motions with his head to follow him. As we follow Adam on this journey with this man and learn who he is and uncover progressively more and more information about Adam’s past, the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur. In-between Adam’s visits to his childhood home, he begins a relationship with Harry and the two men share many intimate moments of connection, filling the void that Adam’s had in his life. While this aspect of the film may seem to keep it grounded, it keeps flirting with the lines of reality up until the conclusion, but some of the moments of impact it produces along the way are as hard hitting as any I’ve seen on film this year.

All Of Us Strangers, which comes to us from writer/director Andrew Haigh, delivers an extremely well crafted screenplay from a storytelling perspective, with plot points and reveals coming at regular intervals to maintain viewers interest, despite the issues some will take with the ending. Haigh’s vision for the the film is solid and shines through with the lighting and cinematography. Hues of dark blues in many of the evening shots induce those “magic hour” moments when your mind begins to slip from the grounded reality to the more dreamlike trance state that some sequences of the film stay in. But alongside the excellent story, the film really hangs it’s hat on the performances and amazing chemistry between the two leads, Scott and Mescal. To say that I loved Scott’s performance is an understatement, as he interacts with Mescal and the other two main actors, his looks of loneliness, longing and even despair just broke my heart and is among my favorites of the year. Mescal too is incredible, as he portrays a broken and wandering soul that finds some connections with Scott’s character, and was a supporting performance that I also fully bought into. As I also mentioned briefly, the simple but ethereal music assisted in transporting us to the alternate reality the film goes to on and off throughout it’s runtime. The ending, like I mentioned, is the big hangup that will leave some audiences wanting, to me it felt like a sports player that’s ran the ball all the way down the field and then trips right on the goal line. But despite that, there’s an incredible world that Haigh invites us into that’s themes and moments all worked very well for myself, he delivered a film that resonated strongly with me and that I esteem to be one of the finest of the year.

SUMMARY - With a generally slower pace, at just about an hour and forty-five minutes, this film will keep both general audiences and critics alike engaged with the reveals as the story progresses. But during this upcoming holiday season while All Of Us spend time with family, try to cut out a little time to enjoy the company of these Strangers, you’ll find it to be time well spent.