Rent All of Us Strangers (2023)

A strong, emotional & moving story, dealing with the memories, ghosts & pain of the past - All of Us Strangers review by TB

Adam, played by Andrew Scott, is a lonely & delicate writer in his 40's, who has just moved into a new block of flats in central London. So new in fact, that almost nobody else lives there. The block is a metaphor for Adam's life: both in the center of things as well as feeling totally alone & an outsider. One night, he meets an enigmatic & drunk man called Harry (Mescal) who is one of the only other residents of the building. At the same time he also starts to confront the pain that has been inside him, eating him up & destroying him. This takes the form of going back to his childhood home & talking to his parents, who are strangely younger than he is & stuck in time.

The film is devastating in its portrayal of the pain & hurt as a result of the stigma of being gay in a time when the only things associated with that were AIDS hysteria & being condemned to live a lonely & difficult life. This is coupled with Adam's horrific early losses in his life. What the story does at its most brilliant is to have the conversations which we all wish we had had with our parents (I don't mean specifically about sexuality, I am talking about the massive number of issues that young people growing up face.)

The only thing for me that stops this film getting 5 stars is that the chemistry between Mescal & Scott never fully clicked for me. When you see Jamie Bell & Claire Foy together, they are perfection. But I never felt that with the two leads. They are both good on their own, but together I just wanted that little bit more.

Still, this is a devastating, beautiful & unbearably sad story about confronting the demons of our past.

Poetry - All of Us Strangers review by AER

Beautiful film that makes you appreciate life. Sad and thoughtful. Recommended, just don't try to 'logic' the plot out of existence. Great performances all round.

Emotional, Sad-happy, Metaphysical, Magical Realist Fantasy Based on a 1988 Japanese Novel - All of Us Strangers review by PV

I had no idea what to expect when I started watching this. I soon realised we were entering the metaphysical world of fantasy, however, though some viewers may be lost - being familiar with this sort of thing from novels and sometimes films I am attuned to spot it early!

It actually reminds me a bit of all those old portmanteau Hammer Horror films where a group of people sitting on a train or whatever tell each other their life stories but do not realise they are actually all dead and off to the next place...

I thought this could have been based on a stage play as it would work well as such with a small cast, but it's actually based on a 1988 Japanese novel which was made into a film that year called The Disincarnates there that year too.

One thing I like from a personal perspective is how all the characters in this story are like people I know and have known - both the city dwellers, alone but apart at their central new tower block, but also the parents in semi-detached suburbia which sprawls for miles and miles on every side of London. The forty-something man alone, and lonely, haunted by his past, in stasis due to trauma and disconnected to the wider world. The younger gay man, lost too in another way - the drink, the drugs, the sexual hedonism.

I really liked the '1980s' throwbacks and fashions of the suburban semi, and of course the music, the great POWER OF LOVE by Frankie Goes to Hollywood is a perfect slice of 1984/5. I loved the way the Whitgift Centre gets a mention and some shots too - it is in Croydon where the director is from. And Captain Sensible... I know it well.

Not so sure about the spiritual/magical/fantasy stuff but then I dislike fantasy usually. The ending (no spoilers) may have inspired the rather limp Christmas 2024 Dr Who ending too - and it all started in that 1988 Japanese novel.

And I actively disliked the Irish accent of the main character played by Andrew Scott who is Irish, sure, but so is the 20-years-younger Paul Mescal who manages to do an English accent,. Surely a suburban estuary English accent for Adam would have been better and possible? The Irish accent is explained by a line shoe-horned into the script in the middle somewhere, but I am not buying it. A pity as that annoyed needlessly. It seemed deliberate, pointless, out of place.

And yes, it can meander a little, but not a lot, So 4 stars.

Anyway, it is still a decent, heart-warming, sad-happy watch. And loved THE POWER OF LOVE over the end credits too.