All of Us Strangers

Grade: A-

There is so much in All of Us Strangers that we don’t get an explanation for, and that’s what makes it work so well. It keeps us leaning in and hanging on to every word, to see if it will throw us a bone with a clue. I can’t wait to read the discussions on Reddit and the like. Like David Lynch’s movies, most of the elements of All of Us Strangers don’t make sense, but it plays on our feelings, like music. Director Andrew Haigh did 45 Years, which also had an ambiguous, open-ended conclusion. I liked it, and this film is even better.

Except for extras, this is a four-person movie. Andrew Scott (Catherine Called Birdy, 1917) stars as Adam. We never see what he does in his real-life day job, but he’s writing a screenplay on the side. He lives in a large multi-floor apartment building, but only has one neighbor. Is the building very new, and therefore doesn’t have many tenants yet? ARE there actually more people living there than we see? Why is it just them? We don’t know. The neighbor is attractive, mustachioed Harry (recent Oscar nominee Paul Mescal, from Foe and Aftersun). He is a lover of alcohol and drugs, and soon becomes a lover. A relationship sparks up between them.

Adam’s parents died in a car crash when he was 12. Adam routinely travels by bus to his childhood home. What I’m about to write may sound like a spoiler, but it’s one of the major plot points. His parents live there. They are the age they were when they died, and look roughly the same age as Adam now. He visits with them about once a week. Needless to say, they have some catching up to do. What’s the deal with the parents being alive again? Is this a sci-fi or ghost story? Is this all in Adam’s head? We don’t know.

Mom and dad are played by Claire Foy (Women Talking) and Jamie Bell (Bernie Taupin in Rocketman, and the title character in Billy Elliott). Adam has poignant, sweet scenes with them individually and together. Difficult conversations happen, like when he comes out to them and tells them about his new boyfriend. These are the two parts of the plot: the boyfriend (apparently his only neighbor in this huge building) and meet-ups with his (Reincarnated? Hallucinated? We don’t know) parents. The movie doesn’t spoonfeed us any explanation for these surreal happenings. Everything is treated like this is normal, and surprisingly, nobody really questions what’s going on. The movie just lets its characters live and breathe and reminisce and talk. It’s hypnotic and beautiful, often eerily so.

Accents can be hard to decipher at times. When this arrives on streaming services, you might want to turn on captions. This is a quiet movie. I don’t remember hearing as much bleed-through from theaters on both sides as I did here. But finally, after a slew of heavy-for-the-sake-of-heavy films, here’s one that earns its silence, pauses, and contemplations. All of Us Strangers creeps up and touches you in the feels. It’s not logically sound, but emotionally, it’s just right.

Grade: A-