‘All of Us Strangers’ Review
Stars: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell | Written and Directed by Andrew Haigh
There are few, maybe even only a handful of actors that can truly look into your souls and crush you. A look across their face is all it takes to devastate you. Andrew Scott is one of them. He can portray a quiet loneliness like no other, and through the lens of All of Us Strangers you’ll struggle to find a better performance all year.
We first see Andrew Scott as Adam, through a lonely reflection, gazing out of his London apartment. An apartment block that seems to only house two tenants: Adam and one other young man, Harry (Paul Mescal). The two share a brief encounter while Adam struggles to write a new screenplay, one focusing on his past. He finds himself sifting through old 80s records and photos of his parents who passed away in a tragic car crash when he was 12. Alone, and with the memories of a past he’s never truly escaped from, he finds himself wandering through the town he once called home. Soon he finds himself back at his childhood house and greeted by his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) as they were over thirty years ago.
The world Adam begins to walk around in is just as it was in the 80s, his parents are as they were before the crash, yet seemingly know what is coming. They are aware their boy is now a man and want to know everything. And while Adam begins to develop a relationship with the parents he never truly got to know, and who never got to know him, he begins to develop a relationship with his neighbour Harry. It’s through these two relationships All of Us Strangers shows its true beauty. Through his relationship with Harry, the two men find someone in their individual loneliness, something that they both seem to have struggled with their whole lives. That loneliness seems to have pierced a hole in each of the men, and for Adam one that only got deeper since the loss of his parents. In never getting to know them, in never knowing the truths of his past, he finds himself alone in the present, for to understand the past is to understand yourself. Through getting to spend time with his parents Adam feels he can learn something, know something, but that past can have a dangerous way of making you forget to live in the present.
Every moment we spend between Adam and his parents holds a weight, and silent grief, that never fails to break your heart. The performances of everyone throughout the film are some of the very best. Effortlessly shifting from emotion to emotion. Claire Foy has moments where her tender gaze truly feels like a mother looking at her son, like her whole world has sprung to life in front of her, yet there’s always a sadness that lingers throughout, one that each actor, Andrew Scott more than any, has across their face. As the film continues, there are questions of sexuality and how it’s affected Adam’s life, questions that look and seem deeply personal to the actors and the director (Andrew Haigh), easily making this Haigh’s most personal film to date.
It is perhaps what gives All of Us Strangers so much life throughout, how personal a piece of filmmaking this is. In making a piece of art so personal you feel the life and personality in every shot, in every line, and with every needle drop. It’s hard not to feel emotionally connected to every inch of this film and let it break your heart and fill you with every emotion possible. Like a wave crashing over you the pains of grief, loss, loneliness, and longing all come into play. Haigh has managed to make a beautifully personal film that can not only speak to him as a filmmaker, but to many audience members around the world.
All of Us Strangers is no doubt Andrew Scott’s best performance to date and it’s a performance that will remain hard to top for the rest of the year. Even if it’s one the academy has failed to recognise, it’s one that is worthy of any award there’s ever been.
***** 5/5
All of Us Strangers is in UK cinemas now.
