Review of All of Us Strangers, directed by Andrew Haigh

If you’re new here and found this blog through the mysterious powers of the Internet, welcome! My name is Ashley, and I’m a dedicated reader and movie watcher who thought to turn this website into a little digital archive of sorts.

I was watching and reading so much that I wanted to keep track of it all, so I began blogging as a way to keep these books as memories somewhat forever.

That said, I recently fell into a period of unemployment, and this blog was a solace for me. Not only was it a way to make a little bit of money when there was nothing else coming my way really, but I found, after getting my finances in order, that I enjoyed sitting down to write blog posts when I had nothing else to do in my day.

When it comes to movies and books though, my biggest talent has been procrastinating on the movies I actually want to watch. I worked as a professional film critic at an online outlet for three years, so I would watch a lot of movies for work and interview the people who helped make it happen, but I never had time for my own movie watching.

So when movies like All of Us Strangers come out, I’m so excited to see it, but then I never get around to it. For some time I had an AMC A List subscription, so I would see movies then. I never got to see this one though because my local theater never had any showtimes that worked with my schedule.

I recently watched it because my local library branch put a bunch of DVD copies out in their new arrivals, and when I saw it, I snatched one because I really wanted to see this. It helps that I’m unemployed right now, as I’ve been watching all of these movies I’ve been procrastinating on.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction, as I know these can get long.

A screenwriter befriends his neighbor as he grapples with his trauma.

Andrew Scott portrays the main character of this movie: Adam. He lives in London, alone, and is pretty lonely. He doesn’t interact with anyone until one night, his neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal), is drunk and in the hallway. They start talking, and Harry wants to come inside with Adam.

He says no and then they go their separate ways. Adam continues writing in his apartment, but decides one day to go back to his childhood home, which is completely empty. Turns out his parents died when he was a preteen, but he’s still grieving their loss, as it was a sudden car accident.

When he visits the house, he has dinner with them (more on this later), and tells them he’s going to come back while leaving. As he comes home, he runs into Harry again, and the two start talking again. Adam shows more interest in Harry now and they begin having a romantic relationship as they keep interacting with each other.

Throughout the course of the movie Adam keeps going back to his parents, where he reveals he is gay, but his parents don’t really fully understand it. He also makes up with his father about how he did nothing while Adam was being bullied, and Adam and Harry continue their relationship when he comes home.

They go to clubs and do drugs together. But one night Adam wakes up, after getting so high, at his parent’s house. It’s Christmas, so they decorate the tree and celebrate like a family, then he, despite being an adult, gets into bed with his parents and tells them about how he was taken to his grandmother’s after they died.

Life continues after this, especially with Harry. Adam wakes up one day on the train and sees Harry in the car next to him, but Harry acts like he doesn’t know him. He then sees himself, as a young boy again, screaming in the window. Turns out this is a dream again, as Adam has a panic attack in a club and Harry brought him home.

He then confesses about his parents dying and how it happened. His grandmother refused to let him see his mother in the hospital, which messed him up for the rest of his life.

Adam asks Harry to come with him to their home, and Harry seems concerned. They go to the childhood house, but the place is empty, and Harry says they should leave. Adam hits the glass until it breaks, and when he wakes up the next morning, he's with his parents. They tell him to move on in life, and they go to his favorite restaraunt from when he was a kid.

His parents leave him behind for good when he tells them how they died, but when he goes back to Harry’s apartment, he notices a smell. Harry is dead in his room; he died the night he first met Adam, as he’s still clutching the whiskey bottle he was seen with. He was never really with Andrew, but his ghost is crying, as he never wanted Adam to find out.

Despite this, Adam tells him it’ll be okay, and they get in bed together. Harry asks him to put a record on, and Andrew puts on in as they become lightbeams.

Overall Thoughts

This was such a brilliant screenplay, even if the story can be a bit difficult to get through if you’ve experienced something similar. I thought that this was a poignant depiction of grief and how we can move on, even though the ending is quite tragic and sad in hindsight. Andrew truly had no one except these ghosts, and clung to the only living human he saw that one night.

The way the cinematography was done is also really gorgeous. I loved the way this movie was shot overall, even though its story doesn’t lend itself to more grand moments with blocking and light. It’s so simple but done well, which makes this such an incredible film experience. I wish I saw it on the big screen.

Scott and Mescal are great too. I wish I could’ve landed tickets to Mescal’s production in Brooklyn, here in the US, on the stage, but alas the tickets were much too expensive for my budget in the end. Maybe it’ll transfer to Broadway, but I would also like to see Scott, too. I liked him a lot in Ripley too.

All of this is to say is that if you’re interested in the plot, actors, or themes of the story, I think you should really watch this. It was a great movie experience for me in the end.

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