Loneliness is palpable in Andrew Haigh’s hyped drama where screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) lives alone in a large housing complex, with no neighbors at all.
Except for Harry (Paul Mescal), a drunk but lovable strumpet who rings Adam’s door one evening with a half-drunk bottle of whiskey in his hand. Adam declines his offer to drink it together.
This, shall it show up through the film’s unconventional timeline, is a critical moment. Adam has severe, unprocessed traumas. He approaches them through his screenwriting but soon dream and reality become the same.
A sliver of the universe where incredible things can happen, like love appearing out of nowhere and tragic accidents never happening. Adam meets his parents who died in 1987. Frozen in time, Adam tries to tell them about the man he has become.
The movie has one ghostly, surreal atmosphere, alluring and terrifying at the same time. It is enhanced by the illusory photo that jumps between surreal and highly realistic.
The word “sensual” often feels stale, but with a film as sensual as this, it must be brought out, along with a quiet thought about how liberating it is to see beautifully realistic sex scenes with groping, fumbling and sudden shyness. As it can be when you yearn so much for closeness that you become afraid of it.
But time jump, ghost stories and dream scenes are difficult artistic expressions to master, as are entirely emotion-driven stories. At times, “All of us strangers” is downright painfully beautiful. Golden sunbeams play on a face in love in a world for two. A chance to say what you were never allowed to say. The longing for reassurance that life can go on.
But sometimes it is the “too much”, in the sense that the trauma, the loneliness, the tragedy and the spiral down into the darkness of the psyche never stop spinning. There is no respite here, no grace. But such is grief on the other hand.