All of Us Strangers review: A beautifully crafted exploration of love, death, loss, guilt
Andrew Scott in All of Us Strangers
★★★★★
Living alone in a London high-rise, screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) finds himself blocked as he tries to start a new project.
His personal situation improves when he meets working-class Northerner Harry (Paul Mescal), who also lives alone a few floors below, and a tentative romance blossoms.
Still struggling for inspiration, however, Adam journeys out to the suburban home of his childhood to visit with his Dad (Jamie Bell) and Mum (Claire Foy), a couple who seem to be stuck in a 1980s time-warp. Or is it Adam who is stuck in a groove he can’t escape?
Adapted by writer-director Andrew Haigh from Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers, All of Us Strangers (16s) is a beautifully crafted exploration of all the big little words: love, death, loss, guilt.
As Adam grows increasingly unmoored in his drift between past and present, reality and fantasy, the story grows ever more profound and poignant: Adam may be unable to get his story down on paper, but the fictions he weaves through the prosaic details of his life are fabulously tender and touching.
Individually excellent, Scott and Mescal are superb together, their offscreen ‘bromance’ creating genuine chemistry in their onscreen romance, while the always reliable Jamie Bell and Claire Foy turn in supporting performances to rank with the best of their careers.
Andrew Haigh has delivered some very fine films over the years – Weekend (2011), 45 Years (2015) and Lean on Pete (2017) – but All of Us Strangers (which also boasts a stonking ’80s soundtrack) eclipses them all as it dives deep into the heart of what it means to love and to be loved.
(cinema release)
