You were always on my mind: Haigh’s latest is a consummate tale of overcoming loss
Back in 2017, in my review of the lackluster film A Ghost Story, I declared that Manchester by the Sea was the “finest movie about grief ever made.” Fast forward to the present day, however, and I now retract my statement. Writer/director Andrew Haigh’s devastating new film All of Us Strangers has usurped that designation, and at this point I can’t fathom that another picture could even come close to knocking it out of position. An emotionally wrenching, achingly true, and deeply affecting story about trauma, grief, and memory, Haigh’s film is one of the year’s best.
Andrew Scott, Fleabag’s aptly named Hot Priest, and Paul Mescal of Normal People and last year’s equally melancholic Aftersun star as Adam and Harry, respectively. Neighbors in a sparsely populated London apartment building, the pair meet one evening when Harry knocks on Adam’s door. Their developing relationship intensifies Adam’s psychological processing of traumatic events from his past.
All of us Strangers is one of those films where there’s much to discuss after you see it, but the less you know in advance about how the story unfolds, the better. Based on the 1987 novel Strangers by Japanese author Taichi Yamada, Haigh’s movie follows two main threads. The picture charts Adam and Harry’s budding relationship at the same time that Adam, a struggling screenwriter, grapples with the residual emotional scars from losing his parents in a car accident when he was just shy of 12. Claire Foy (The Crown) and Jamie Bell play Adam’s parents, who appear to him in the present day just as they were when he was a boy, before their accident.
Whether Mum and Dad–and other story elements–are mysteriously real, visions from Adam’s dreams, products of intense memories, or characters in the screenplay he’s trying to write is for the audience to decide. What is important is that their presence allows adult Adam to converse with them about everything from coming out as gay, to how they and others treated him as a child, to details about the night of their accident.
In that sense, the film has a specificity to it: Adam’s parents remain firmly planted in Thatcher’s late ‘80s Britain, and so their views on AIDS and gay marriage are dated, and adult Adam seems confused that they’d be worried about him. But what is universal are the themes of love, loss, loneliness, remorse and regret that permeate the picture. After Harry tells Adam he’s sorry to hear what happened to Adam’s parents, Adam brushes him off casually, saying “It was a long time ago.” But Harry responds gently, “I don’t think that matters.” Harry’s answer is the crux of the picture.
As anyone who’s ever lost someone close well knows, time passing can lessen the sadness of loss somewhat, but never make it totally disappear. The ache may dull a bit, but it’s always a part of you, and some people learn to live with it better than others. “I suppose we don’t get to decide when it’s over,” is another of the film’s prescient lines about the grieving process. We may not be able to dictate when our grief ends, but we can come to terms with it so it doesn’t consume us, and we can move on. But how long that will take, and how long we may suffer, is the real unknown.
The entire cast is terrific at handling this fantastical but weighty material, although Scott is easily the film’s MVP. His scenes with Foy and Bell will break your heart, and if you finish watching this picture without going through at least one box of Kleenex, you’re a stronger person than I am. Props to Haigh, too, for his music choices, including a perfect use of the Pet Shop Boys version of “Always on My Mind” that will leave you wrecked. But couldn’t we all use a little emotional catharsis over the holidays?
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All of Us Strangers opens on Sunday, Dec. 24th at Bay Area theaters.
