Films > Film Reviews

All of Us Strangers

Cinema City

29/01/24

Ever since Fleabag, Andrew Scott has demonstrated his ability to make an audience feel many emotions, yes MANY, and although in All of Us Strangers he is far from the infamous “Hot Priest”, he manages to dig so deep under the skin of this character its impossible not to get lost within his emotion in this film.

Scott plays Adam, a man reduced to a boy again when he begins to see his mother and father years after they died in a tragic car crash. Adam is a character riddled with loneliness, something he has never been able to escape since he was a boy. Every time Adam goes back home, he sees his parents again, and is able to tell them about the man he has grown up to be. This includes an emotional “coming-out” to his mother and father, as Adam opens up about his queerness, something he never had the chance to do before they died.

The emotion of this film is inevitably tied up in grief and loss; Adam can never and has never truly loved himself, as he never experienced the love of his parents. What Haigh captures so sadly is the pain not only Adam, but all the characters go through; His mother and father feel terrible guilt that they never understood their son, inevitably down to the taboo of being gay in the 80s, and Adam himself cannot let go of them as he feels they never got enough time together.

What pulls Adam back to reality, is Paul Mescal’s Harry, a young man of whom Adam begins a relationship with. Adam’s growing love of Harry becomes tangled with his love for his parents, and as the film goes on, it becomes harder to tell what is real, and what is in Adam’s imagination.

Strangely, there is a strong feeling of hope, even within the ending. Adam essentially grows up again, his childhood wounds of bullying, isolation, and battling himself about being gay are ripped open tragically as we watch him metaphorically bleed all his trauma and vulnerabilities out to his parents.

However, despite his loneliness and pain, there is hope that Adam can find some happiness as he shows his parents who he truly is. In the end, he is just a boy who wants the comfort of his mother’s touch, who longs for a hug from his father. His parents’ acceptance of him reignites the feeling that he can be loved and love again, despite the rather bittersweet ending.

All of Us Strangers gifts our screens with a love story that feels both nostalgic and haunting, with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal delivering such a captivating chemistry. From beginning to end, it captures a journey of loneliness, trauma, and healing, and the rawness of grief that strips characters down to their core.

We’re all strangers, but we all want to be loved. (Bring some tissues.)

Presently showing at Cinema City.