All of Us Strangers

dir: Andrew Haigh

2023

A boy loses his parents when he is too young. It arrests his emotional development in shocking ways, gives him a wound he never recovers from.

He may grow up eternally aching for their approval, which he can never get, because they’re dead, so he punishes himself (by keeping himself isolated), punishes others (by pushing them away) in order to somehow make up for that profound lack in his life. It’s a self-made, self-sustaining hook that he cannot let himself get off from.

But enough about every version of Batman that’s ever been made.

All of Us Strangers follows the story of a man called Adam (Andrew Scott) navigating (or not) his way through life, hoping for benediction or a blessing where none is forthcoming. He lives alone in an apartment in a sparsely occupied tower. It might be a new construction, because there’s only one other chap living there on a different floor, apparently.

That guy, Harry (Paul Mescal), tries to connect with Adam, but he’s drunk, and Adam’s not taking visitors. Adam is shy and retiring, and retreats at all times.

He retreats so much that he travels back to the place where he grew up, somewhere south of London. He wanders around old haunts, even to an area that kinda looks like a beat, have to say. And a certain distance away, he spies a smiling, mustachioed man, who seems to know him, or at least like him.

Adam follows him and ends up at his childhood home. It looks exactly the same as the photo he carries of the place. Even has the family car in the same spot, and his little bike.

Mum and Dad are home, looking younger than ever (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), and welcome him in for a chat. He is astounded to see them, as one would expect, since his parents died in a car crash when Adam was 12, and he’s in his late forties now. He’s older than his parents, somehow.

Given a gift like this by the universe, why would you question it. He takes the opportunity to speak to his parents a little bit about the present, but mostly about the past, the long ago past, the past before he lost them.

Losing them at that age; he missed the opportunity to come out to them as gay, and that’s one of the many things which he feels the profound absence of in his life. And getting to see them now means he has the chance to do it. And he does so, but these people, these beings, they are not his parents of now, of today. They are who they were back in the 1980s, which, let’s not split hairs here, that was forty years ago. Calling it a tumultuous time does it a disservice. Calling it a complex time for LGBTIQ+ people in Britain probably doesn’t do it justice either.

My recollections of the era are particularly irrelevant, since I didn’t grow up there, and I am not a part of that community other than as an ally, I hope, but I do remember the music, as does Adam, as does director Andrew Haigh. I remember the growing understanding of more and more people coming out loud and proud at a time when attacks on them were increasing as well, even as the music many members of this community were making was top of the charts, the radio and the tv shows that played their film clips.

So, for me, there being a lot of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Bronski Beat, Erasure or Pet Shop Boys just means “oh okay those are a lot of 80s tunes I recognise”, but for the character of Adam, and the director, there’s that deeper connection that these tunes must have represented, the lifeline they provided for someone who was struggling.

It’s not a coincidence that the home Adam travels back to is not only the character’s childhood home, but the director’s, as well.

When he comes out to his mum, well, she’s still entrenched in the stereotypes and clichés that were around back in that day: she’s worried that he’ll grow up lonely and sad, or, worse yet, that he’ll succumb to that dreadful disease she’s started hearing about. She’s embarrassed, shocked, unable to make eye contact, evasive and not really the accepting mother that popular culture has led us to expect.

Dad seems to be more understanding, or at least accepting. He’s practical. Just have another smoke. I guess it’s not a coincidence that while Dad probably looks like a contemporary South London bloke from the era, he doesn’t look a million miles away from being a dapper gay gent himself.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Harry, Adam’s potential love interest, and Dad look more alike than Adam and his dad.

No, the bigger conflict between Adam and his dad, who claims he always knew he was gay because Adam could never play sport for shit, is that his dear old Dad must have heard Adam crying in his room, after being bullied at school, but never went in to console him, never asked what had happened, never trying to make things better.

Dear old Dad asks something like “well, why didn’t you ever tell me?”

It’s a devastating admission that Adam makes saying he never explicitly told his father what happened, fearing that his father wouldn’t understand, only to have his dad admit “yeah, if you’d told me I’d probably have bullied you too.” It’s…a gut punch amidst all this catharsis.

We ask ourselves – are these just creations of his mind? Are they the spirits of his parents? Are they saying what he would have wanted them to say back then, or what he would need to hear from them now? Or has he somehow travelled to the past? Is this just another manifestation of his inability to make peace with losing his parents, or is it an attempt to finally grow with it, to let some catharsis take place, to allow himself to let go of some unanswerable questions he had, with answers that either shock him out of complacency, or comfort him in ways he’s needed for over 30 years? Or are they just his parents, in whatever form, wishing him well, slightly confused by what they’re doing here, held up from some eternal reward?

The only meaningful answer to such questions is, maybe?

There are elements of his relationship with his parents that he gets to explore that help with his relationship with Harry, and vice versa, but none of this is neat or formulaic. There are no pat answers for Adam, and nothing really transpires in a way that’s tidy. In outings or during moments with Harry, there is fear, terror, confusion, and it’s not just because of the drugs. Some moments spent within the safe space of a club give way to further confusion about who or what is real or meaningful, and I don’t think any of it is meant to be that simple a journey.

Andrew Scott is an accomplished actor of long standing, adored by those who know him, and “oh yeah, that guy who was Moriarty in Sherlock or the Hot Priest in Fleabag” occasionally recognised by others. One of his best roles, for my money, was in a wonderful flick set during the 80s about some chaps who wanted to support Welsh miners during the strikes (boo hiss Thatcher) called Pride. Just guess what else it was about.

Here he brings a deep woundedness to the character of Adam, and a lot of it comes through from what he doesn’t do more than what he does. I wouldn’t call it a restrained performance because it’s less about restraint than it is about embodying a character who in a lot of ways knows he hasn’t allowed himself to grow emotionally, and the very valid reasons for that, but one who wishes so deeply for a chance to feel again, without fear of rejection or loss.

So many great moments from the four performers here, but they’re not showy speeches. There are moments where someone says quietly something like always feeling like a stranger in one’s own family, or wanting to go out into the world together, now, finally. They feel natural and not overwritten, and are delivered as such. Tiny steps.

Some might argue that one relationship, the one with the parents, is more important or better realised than the other, being the complexities of Adam being with Harry, but I would argue both are balanced, and treated with as much sensitivity or importance as necessary. In some ways, being less fraught but still complicated, the burgeoning relationship with Harry allows Adam to be in some ways more honest with his parents, and in other ways less.

And yet. Sometimes there are no happy endings, just the chance to feel something, even if it’s just safe, or even if it’s just love, it’s not an insignificant thing; in fact it could be everything. I imagine the ending of this flick will divide audiences a lot, at least those lucky few that got to see it, hopefully in theatres.

There are plenty of levels upon which I can respect but not relate to some themes in the film, but as someone who’s lost both his parents, there are elements I can deeply relate to, almost against my will.

It’s a hard flick to recommend, though. I can imagine plenty of people I know being completely indifferent to it, and others being utterly wrecked by All of Us Strangers.

8 reasons there are no happy mediums out of 10

--
“I was thinking about watching crappy TV with you on a Friday night. Watching old episodes of Top of the Pops from before I was born. Eating takeaway on the sofa.” – sounds like heaven - All of Us Strangers