Spoilers in this review
The experience of watching Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers feels a little like when you are just starting to get sick and have a mild fever and those body aches where it kind of hurts to touch your own skin, but in a weirdly good way? The film is dreamy, achy, intimate, sad, erotic, lonely, oddly comforting, and deeply personal. "Intimate" I think is the key word here: All of Us Strangers is an incredibly intimate film, featuring a performance of almost unbearable vulnerability by Andrew Scott (probably best known for playing the Hot Priest in season 2 of Fleabag...or Moriarity in the Sherlock series).
Scott plays Adam, a 40-something gay man living in a nearly empty high-rise in London. Adam is a writer but appears to struggle with writer's block. He also seems to never leave his apartment. It's a very lonely life for Adam. One night, 20-something Harry (Paul Mescal) shows up drunk at Adam's door and propositions him--for sex, a drink, or just some company--but Adam turns him away.
Adam later takes a train to his old childhood home and finds his parents living there. The only thing is...Adam's parents died in a car crash when he was 12. And yet, here they are, inviting him in and telling him how grown up he is. In fact, he's older now than they were when they died. The movie doesn't explain how this is possible. It just is.
When Adam sees Harry again, he invites him back to his apartment and they talk for a while and then have sex. There's an interesting conversation where Harry asks Adam if he's queer and Adam says "Yes. Well, gay. Queer was always such an insult when I was growing up." Harry explains that "gay" was the insult when *he* was growing up, which is why he prefers "queer". I don't know why this conversation struck me, other than the fact that it comments on how time passes, yet things still kind of stay the same. And time being amorphous and circular is definitely a theme in this movie.
The next time Adam visits his house, he comes out to his mom (Claire Foy), who doesn't insult him but is clearly upset, having always imagined Adam getting married and having children. When Adam later talks to his dad (Jamie Bell), he seems less upset by Adam's being gay, especially since he claims he always knew Adam was different (I think "fruity" is the actual descriptor he uses).
Having never had to come out to my parents (at least not for being gay), I can't speak personally to how realistic these conversations between Adam and his dead parents are, but based on some opinions I've read about the film they're very realistic. I can, however, speak to the weird dance you do with your parents once you're both adults, where the power dynamic has changed but the emotional dynamic hasn't. They don't have any control over your life and choices anymore, but you still want their approval and love. There's also a weird thing where you can acknowledge the mistakes they made in raising you (in Adam's case it was his dad never comforting him when he cried alone in his room as a child) and they understand the mistakes they made too, and can maybe even apologize, but you can't go back and change it...so all you can do is forgive. And because you, too, are an adult...you kind of get it. Because at that point you've made mistakes. But you still feel wounded because they were your parents. Am I rambling? My point is: interacting with your parents as an adult is complex, even (especially?) if you love them.
All of those feelings and conversations are explored in All of Us Strangers, which is why I have a catch in my throat thinking about the movie even now. That Adam gets a version of closure with his parents--getting to come out to them, getting an acknowledgement of their regrets and mistakes, and getting a final "I love you" from a dad who could barely say it in life but is free to say it in death--ooof, this is truly powerful stuff.
The ending of the movie is fairly divisive and I will give an EXTRA SPOILER WARNING before I reveal it.
Adam comes home from his final visit with his parents and goes to Harry's apartment to find Harry dead in his bedroom--wearing the same clothes and carrying the same liquor bottle as when he originally knocked on Adam's door that first night and was turned away. This revelation was devastating to me, feeling intense empathy toward Adam who literally just lost his parents a second time. But wait, Harry's ghost is still in his apartment. He and Adam go back to Adam's apartment and curl up in bed together, the camera pulling further and further out as the song "The Power of Love" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood plays (it's a VERY cheesy song, just FYI).
So, there's a lot to unpack here...Harry was presumably dead all along which means...Adam had sex with a ghost?! Yes, that's definitely where my mind went. But one idea that didn't occur to me later until a friend pointed it out is that maybe Adam was also dead, or dying, or in purgatory. Some version of being not alive. Which would explain how he could see his dead parents and also other weird things like why the high-rise apartment was empty, other than Harry and Adam.
Personally, I like this interpretation a lot. I like the idea that maybe the afterlife is when we can right the wrongs of the past or have closure with loved ones. Maybe Adam was in purgatory and purgatory is just a place where you finish some inter-dimensional, cosmic business and then move on and heaven is curling up with the cute boy from apartment 6D. There's this whole "we're all part of the universe and the universe is all part of us" vibe that I kinda dig.
Some people felt that the ending was depressing, but it didn't feel that way to me. It felt safe and warm. In fact, the entire movie feels safe and warm despite having the potential to be emotionally devastating. It's a film about grief and loneliness and time passing...but it's also about connection and choosing love. Circling back to my analogy above, it's like that warm, achy feeling you get when you're sick, but you know your mom will be in soon with some chicken noodle soup and a cold compress for your forehead: All of Us Strangers is a good ache. A good ache and a good movie I can't wait to watch again.
Just a man and his ghost bae.
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