All of Us Strangers

Since breaking out with the acclaimed gay love story WEEKEND (2011) over a decade ago, British director Andrew Haigh has distinguished himself as a high chronicler of modern relationships, whose poignant dramas exhibit remarkable candour. ALL OF US STRANGERS—Haigh’s newest romance—cracks open the life and mind of Adam (a superb Andrew Scott), a gloomy screenwriter living on the outskirts of London. Shifting seamlessly between scenes of pastel-hued introspection and raw, fleshy intimacy, the film tracks Adam’s budding afair with Harry (Paul Mescal), a gregarious younger man and the only other person living in Adam’s high-rise apartment building. Meanwhile, Adam ventures into a parallel suburban realm in which he visits his parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy), seemingly frozen in time before their deaths when Adam was 12. An adaptation of Yamada Taichi’s 1987 novel, the film considers the existential turmoil of gay men of an older generation, caught between the panic, fear and homophobia of their upbringing and the relatively accepting atmosphere of today. Sexy and surreal yet also brimming with vulnerability, ALL OF US STRANGERS is a devastating meditation on solitude, grief, and the past’s eternal grip on the present. (Beatrice Loayza)

Andrew Haigh: GREEK PETE (2009), WEEKEND (2011), 45 YEARS (2015), LEAN ON PETE (2017)