Always on My Mind: the Haunting Second Chances of All of Us Strangers
What would you say to loved ones you’ve lost? English filmmaker Andrew Haigh’s emotional drama makes the impossible feel beautifully real.
good.film
a year ago
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Why should I see All of Us Strangers?
All of Us Strangers is aching with messages about identity, pain, and love - and how the things left unspoken can both haunt us and heal us.
Is there a name for the certain kind of magic that movies rely on? That suspension of disbelief that allows us all, in a dark room, to buy into a shared, hypnotic illusion? Yes, those still frames are moving. Yes, those dinosaurs are real. And yes, that bus really jumped over that gap in the freeway. As Keanu would say: “Woah” (well said, Keanu).
All of Us Strangers tells its story with an achingly beautiful illusion at its core. If you just HAVE TO KNOW WHY AND HOW things are happening the way they are, this isn’t the movie for you. And if your movie buddy is one of those “Is that the same guy? Who is THAT guy? Is this a flashback?” kind of friends, we’re begging you - leave them behind for this one. Here’s why.
What is the movie All of Us Strangers about?
All of Us Strangers explores social causes like Family & Community & LGBTQIA+
Adam (played in a gorgeously gentle way by Fleabag star Andrew Scott) is a screenwriter who lives alone, in a new apartment block that barely anyone has moved into. It’s a solitary life, but there’s a flicker of flirtation when his twentysomething neighbour Harry (Paul Mescal) comes knocking with a bottle of whisky in hand - both men are single and gay.
Adam’s writing a script about his parents, who were killed in a car accident over 30 years ago, when he was just 12 years old. Stuck for inspo, Adam catches the train from London back to his suburban, childhood home - and there they are. His Mum and Dad, seemingly alive and well. The same age, the same clothes, exactly the same as the day he lost them, decades before.
Is All of Us Strangers a ghost story?
Not quite. It’s very tempting to label Adam’s parents as ghosts - that’s actually the premise of Japanese author Taichi Yamada’s original novel “Strangers” that inspired the film. But writer & director Andrew Haigh has pushed back on that, saying:
“I wanted to move away from the traditional ghost story of the novel and find something more psychological, almost metaphysical.”
Adam’s not fearful or overcome to reunite with his long-dead parents. A bit like a Buddhist meditation, he melts into the experience, calmly allowing their warm welcome to envelop him. (Interestingly, the Buddhist principle of impermanence - that there is no past, and nothing lasts - can offer a very healing perspective on grief for some. As Zen Buddhist priest Zoketsu Fischer writes, “In Buddhism, death isn’t death—it’s a staging area for further life.”)
What Adam’s seeing can’t be happening - and yet, it is. His parents aren’t alive, and yet they are. Is Adam imagining this reunion, in a lucid writing session for his screenplay? Or is he simply projecting his grief? Perhaps he’s living in a sort of purgatory, and his nearly vacant building represents a place between life and death?
You don’t need the answer in order to be moved by this story. To try and “solve” the mystery is to miss the point. Adam’s been given a gift, and so have we: sink into it, and see how Haigh uses his impossible “What if?” as an opportunity to gently explore intriguing ideas that otherwise couldn’t be told.
If you had the chance, what conversations would you have with a loved one that’s left your life? How would you come out to your Mum, with the maturity of decades of lived experience? Where can you find common ground and catharsis with your Dad, now that you’re an older man than he ever became?
How does All of Us Strangers explore queer identity?
Director Andrew Haigh (who himself is gay) uses both story and setting to examine the queer experience. Take where Adam lives: his empty apartment tower serves as a metaphor for isolation and otherness. The distant, shimmering city lights from Adam’s windows show us how removed he is from the mass of life in London; he is literally cut off from others.
When Adam invites Harry inside for the first time, they bond over their shared sexuality and their takes on gay identity and perception. Adam admits he’s never been that comfortable with the label “queer” because when he was growing up, it was always a slur. Harry shares that he always felt like a stranger in his own family - “coming out just put a name on it.”
Haigh is keen to establish that they’re gay men from two different generations: Adam was a gay teen in the late 80s, Harry is two decades younger. It’s not that Adam isn’t comfortable with his sexuality, but the two men clearly have different levels of ease about their gayness and how they share it with others.
“I was interested in exploring the complexities of both familial and romantic love, but also the distinct experience of a specific generation of gay people growing up in the 80s.”
~ writer/director Andrew Haigh
This comes to the fore in Adam’s next visit with his Mum (Claire Foy), who’s excited to find out about his adult life. Of course, it comes up pretty quickly: So… do you have a girlfriend? Adam smiles, says no, explains why. We’re seeing, in effect, a man in the 2020s come out to his Mum from the early 90s. In this way, Haigh juxtaposes past attitudes against modern acceptance.
It’s a fascinating scene. As an adult, Adam can reveal his sexuality to his Mum in a completely different way than he might have as a teen. It’s no longer the bombshell it might once have been - society has “caught up”. It also gently underlines how, for many parents learning that their child is gay, a reaction that could be labelled “homophobic” might instead be sprung more from their love and concern than from bigotry.
Don’t you want to get married? Have kids? We can do all that now, Adam tells his Mum. What about that horrible disease? Haigh keeps the camera on Andrew Scott’s face here, and it’s highly effective. Because when Adam realises how much his Mum doesn’t know about what’s changed since the 90s, we realise how far things have come.
What does All of Us Strangers tell us about processing trauma?
It’s no surprise that a family member dying (not to mention both parents) can have profound and life-long impacts on children, from clinical symptoms like anxiety to issues with self-esteem, isolation and identity confusion. What Haigh has really done a spectacular job of here is using the metaphor of Adam’s reincarnated parents to unpack the trauma of loss.
It’s a movie version of what we’d call in the real world inner child therapy, a psychotherapeutic approach that focuses on healing unresolved wounds and trauma we carry with us from childhood. While it’s been around as a concept for nearly a century - Psychologist Carl Jung was the first to propose it - it’s caught fire in the new millennium, with hashtags like #innerchildlove getting billions of hits on social media lately.
Adam experienced his parents’ deaths just as he was processing his sexuality. In some ways, he’s emotionally frozen at that pivotal timeframe - as a 12 year old boy in enormous grief. Haigh often plays on this with childlike imagery, like when Adam climbs into his parents’ bed late at night, or sits on the floor as they decorate the Christmas tree.
Spending time with his parents gives Adam the priceless chance to have the conversations he never got to have, and let go of the pain he felt as a result. The film’s most heartbreaking scene comes when Adam talks with his Dad (Jamie Bell) for the first time after coming out, and Dad apologises for not being more supportive. He often heard Adam crying at night, but never comforted him - admitting that back then, his judgement got in the way. Poignantly, Adam replies, “I think I always knew that - so I didn't come to you.”
It’s a touching, full circle admission, and a nod to how perceptive family members are to each others’ pain, no matter their age. Even when he needed support, a lonely young boy can be just as protective of his father’s feelings as the other way around - then, tragically, lose the chance to ever discuss and process those feelings when his Dad is suddenly ripped away.
That’s the cathartic release (the magic, even) that All of Us Strangers provides. While it might sound a bit over-egged, the emotion of the scene is cinema at its best. We dare you not to feel your heart get squeezed when Dad embraces Adam, and we get a glimpse of the father holding his son once more - not as a grown man, but the 12 year old boy he left behind.
What are critics saying about All of Us Strangers?
“Emotional and lyrical, All of Us Strangers is a meditation on what it means to really be a human.”
- Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
“Andrew Haigh strikes gold in this moving, heart-wrenching drama about the lasting trauma of grief, isolation and the all-too-human fear of loneliness.”
- Laura Babiak, Observer
“All of Us Strangers is therapy for the audience, or at least that specific segment of us who desperately need to hear our fathers say, ‘I’m sorry I never came in your room when you were crying.’”
- Peter Debruge, Variety
Fully on board, or disagree big time? We’d love to hear your take. Leave a review to share your thoughts with the good.film community!
So what’s the takeaway from All of Us Strangers?
It’s the biggest of ideas, yet you could label All of Us Strangers a “small film” and you wouldn't be wrong. It takes place in just a few locations, and there’s only four actors on the screen. But their performances are so affecting that this story of love, grief and belonging feels unexpectedly healing and joyous.
“I wanted it to be a compassionate sort of hug,” says Haigh of his BAFTA-nominated film. “It’s not easy to say things to people you love, to tell people how you feel, but secretly we all wish we could. If we could in some metaphysical realm connect like this, wouldn’t that be an amazing thing?”
We’ll close with a confession: this review doesn’t really capture All of Us Strangers. Not quite. Because the film’s ideas and emotions interweave in a way that’s beyond words - it’s experiential. Like a triumphant symphony or a sumptuous meal, how do you describe the feeling of being immersed in something magical? You can’t. You have to taste it for yourself.
