One of my most anticipated movies of 2024 was Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers. Based off a novel by Taichi Yamada, the film follows Adam (played by the wickedly talented Andrew Scott) as he attempts to write a screenplay about his parents (played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), both of whom died in a car accident when he was twelve. Adam is a writer, and the empty high-rise apartment building he lives in is a physical representation of his loneliness—colossal, empty, vacuous, and dark. After an encounter with a stranger, Harry (played by Paul Mescal), Adam decides to take a train to his childhood home where he is shocked to find the lights on, the furniture untouched, and his parents as they were thirty years ago—alive, unchanged, solid, eternal in golden light. What develops from this is one of the most moving portrayals of grief, loss, and loneliness that I have ever seen. It’s not gushingly sentimental either, for the backbeat of this film is haunting surrealism—nothing is quite as it seems.
The ghosts in the film deviate from the ephemeral archetype—no wispy entrails or hazy edges but the hard structure of skeleton. These ghosts are solid and breathing. They can be touched; they can be embraced. And that makes it even more poignant and destructive. Every train ride to his childhood home in the country is symbolic of a return to grief, that coiling spiral of mourning that one never truly escapes from when profoundly touched by the love and loss of someone close.
This film is for those who feel that desire to return to a place that is untouched and enduring, to hug someone again and feel their heartbeat against yours, to sit in the gentle solace of a Saturday afternoon—sunlight streaming in through open windows, the sound of a record popping softly, the crystal clink of teacup on saucer. Adam gets to meet his parents as adults, and they in turn get to learn about their son and his life. Conversations about the social progress that has been made in the past thirty years create a metafictional feeling to the film, as Adam addresses his parents it is also an address to the audience—do you remember how things were? Do you remember what it was like?
Conversations surrounding societal change are further explored in the relationship between Adam and Harry. Although both are queer men, Adam’s experiences growing up in the 1980s shaped his relationship to his sexuality. He grew up in an age of hostility, when people were unable to share these fundamental aspects about themselves for fear of ostracization, discrimination, and violence. As their relationship becomes more intimate, Adam reveals that his experience with sex is in stark contrast to Harry’s given the developments in HIV research and other safe-sex practices. It seems almost archaic to be concerned about AIDs, however it was a dangerous reality when Adam was growing up in the 1980s, a time when entire communities were ravaged by medical negligence and social oppression. Adam can come out to his parents as an adult, and it is one of the most poignant moments in the film.
Perhaps the central force that moves ghosts to return to this world and that draws Adam out of his reclusive sorrow is the need for forgiveness. Adam’s father apologies for not being there when his son needed him most, and Adam can begin to forgive himself for living, for growing older than his parents, and for not being there when they needed him most. No human has the power of divine intervention, and yet it is a great sorrow that we cannot stop the inevitable, that we cannot grab someone’s hand and beg them to stay with the foresight that their leaving will be an eternal loss.
While this film is heavily punctuated by honest conversations around grief and the sentimentality of childhood, there is an even deeper nostalgia for 1980s queer culture. The cinematography interjects surrealism into the bloodstream of the film, and the soundtrack of iconic 80s pop ballads and 90s britpop is reminiscent of the gritty whimsy of 90s British cinema. Moments of tenderness are contrasted with drug-fueled stupor, and there is a quiet urgency that pulls the viewer throughout the film.
The ending of the film is truly astonishing and deeply haunting. Some reviews of the film say that the ending inspires more questions than answers which I think is a testament of the film to have clear directives while allowing for intense interpretation. Grief is complicated, it doesn’t make sense, it inspires madness, and yet it is one of the most important human emotions. It is the reason we can love at all. This is one of those films you can re-watch (if you can stomach the heartache) because it can be understood through a thousand lenses. There are so many instances throughout the film of heart-stopping moments of action, of decision, the “butterfly effect” in which a single decision will irrevocably change a life. To open your heart and let someone in. To speak freely with the people that you love. To go out into the world. To let go so that you can love again.