The Reel Review
A lonely gay screenwriter starts a relationship with a mysterious neighbor in his London apartment building just as he discovers his parents appear to be living in the same home that they were on the day they died 30 years earlier. Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy star in this romantic fantasy/drama based on Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers.
Writer/director Andrew Haigh is clearly an actor’s director, giving his incredible four actors an equally incredible canvas to explore themes of loss, grief and loneliness. All of Us Strangers will strike an emotional chord in anyone who has experienced the unexpected death of a loved one. Scott (1917, Fleabag) gives both a haunting and vulnerable performance as the emotionally broken man who, still traumatized by the deaths of those closest to him, has cocooned his heart from the world. This unconventional opportunity gives him a way to explore unresolved issues.
With its almost dreamlike, surreal atmosphere and meticulous song choices, All of Us Strangers is deeply intimate and heartbreaking, one of those movies that will have you thinking about the things you’d wish you could say to your departed loved ones. The film and its not-so-surprising twist culminates in a lingering moment of infinite beauty that will haunt your memories long after you see it.
REEL FACTS
• Writer/director Andrew Haigh’s childhood home served as the filming location for the house where Adam finds his parents.
• Taichi Yamada died of natural causes on November 29, 2023. He was 89.
• Andrew Scott, who played the priest in Fleabag, will next appear in the Jamie Foxx/Cameron Diaz Netflix action/comedy Back in Action.
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