ALL OF US STRANGERS

UK, 2023, 105 minutes, Colour.

Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell, Claire Foy.

Directed by Andrew Haigh.

With strangers in the title, and referring to everyone, strangers to one another, strangers in our relationships, this is a very melancholy title.

The screenplay, based on a novel by Japanese author, Taichi Yamada, was written by Andrew Haigh who has had a successful career writing and directing screenplays which probe same-sex relationships, Weekend, Looking. He also wrote and directed the insightful film about an aged married couple, 45 Years.

Irish actor, Andrew Scott, has had a substantial career since he was very young, Moriarty to Benedict Cumberbatch as detective in the series, Sherlock, C in the James Bond film, Spectre, and as a comic priest in Phoebe Waller’s comedy series, Fleabag. This is one of his best and most moving performances.

He plays Adam, in his 40s, alone, lonely, a gay man who has had not had an emotional relationship. He is a screenwriter, probing his own history in his writing. Scott makes Adam someone whom we respond to with care, concern about his loneliness, occupying a room in a huge new high-rise apartment block in London, but the other flats still empty. He encounters Harry, Paul Mescal (Normal People, Aftersun, Foe, Gladiator 2) at his door, Harry drinking, suggestive, but Adam closing the door on him.

But we know that Harry will persevere, something will develop between the two.

While watching the film, the key word that emerges in our consciousness is “empathy”. Adam is such a pleasing and sympathetic character who invites our empathetic attitude towards him, for him as a person, for him as a lonely man, for him as a man with a homosexual orientation. And the theme that the film explores is what is “being in love” for Adam.

This is a question is posed to him by his mother. And the appearance of Adam’s father and mother takes us into a different realm in the storytelling. They have been dead for 30 years, sadly killed in a car crash when Adam was 12. But, as he looks at the box of photos from the past, he has an overwhelming desire to visit the house again, takes the train, walks the street, encounters his parents, goes into the house, sits down and talks with them. They are played very effectively (and we remember Billy Elliot and The Crown) by Jamie Bell and Claire Foy.

So happy is Adam in his parents and rediscovering them, that he goes back, encountering his mother alone, she innocently asking about his girlfriend, he telling her about his orientation, her being rather bewildered, not knowing how to talk with her son. In his next visit, he encounters his father has been told by his wife about Adam and mentions that she needs to rearrange a few things in her mind. What follows is a powerful discussion about Adam and his experiences as a young boy, bullied at school, his father realising the orientation and the question between them of why his father never spoke to him about the issues and why he never spoke to his father.

These revisits to his parents have a disturbing effect on Adam, waking disturbed, Harry there as support for him. The line between fantasy and reality is disappearing.

These ghostly themes continue with some farewells, and a very sad ending.

In these years of discussion about same-sex relationships, talk about blessings of same-sex unions, this is an empathetic film for a wide audience.

1. The title? Melancholy? Relationships?
2. The London setting, the block of flats, high, empty, the interiors, the corridors, the lifts? The musical score?
3. Adam’s story? The performance by Andrew Scott, empathy? His age, screenwriting, exploring his past, living alone, lack of relationships? Hearing the alarm, going outside, looking up, seeing Harry? Harry and his visit, the talk, Adam shutting the door? Harry’s later return, his story, father, alienated, his mother? Adam inviting him in, the talk, the touch of tension, Harry relaxed, the drink, discussion about the difference between gay and queer, the physical attraction, the sexual encounter, the aftermath?
4. Adam and his writing, seeing the photos of the past, the audience learning that his parents had died in a car crash, black ice, father instantly, mother later, losing an eye? The house, his desire to visit the house?
5. Adam and his physical condition, health? The screenplay showing him to visit the house, the encounter with his parents, the return visits, his waking up? The line between reality and dream? Sometimes overlapping? At home and sleeping and waking, Harry reassuring him? Waking up on the train, but this being part of dreams? Seeing Harry in the underground, following him, alone on the train?
6. And these scenarios as possibility for his screenwriting, exploring and understanding his past?
7. Going home, comfortable, his parents at the age they died, their welcoming him, the characteristics, father being jovial, mother loving her son and being fussy? His happiness in meeting them again? The decision to return, the visit with his mother, her asking about girlfriends, getting him something to eat, his revealing his orientation to her, her not understanding, her being uncomfortable? The visit to his father, his father reassuring him that his mother had told him, that she just had to rearrange some things in her mind, Adam telling his father the things were different, his telling about equality, marriage, less prejudice, but sometimes this rising as it did in the past? His father and his understanding, memories of Adam at school, Adam talking about the bullying, calling him girl, the boys and girls both critical? His father saying he was aware of this? Adam asking why he didn’t come into to talk with him? His father asking why Adam didn’t tell his father?
8. The final visit, the outing with his parents, the restaurant and the waitress, the family meal? But his parents not eating, a more ghostly presence, telling him that had to leave, and wanting them to stay, even to visit them once a year? The question about whether the death was instant, his mother not seeing well, but Adam reassuring them they died quickly? And then disappearing?
9. Adam returning home, going to Harry’s apartment, finding Harry dead? Harry outside, knowing that his body was in the other room? Adam reassuring him, settling him down, urging him to go to see his mother?
10. Reality and fantasy, ghostly presences?
11. And Adam, his illness, live in dying, his memories in coming to terms with his life, in love with Harry (and his mother asking him this explicitly,?
12. An empathetic film for gay audiences? An empathetic and invitational film for wide audiences?