Review by George Kozera for Mr. Will Wong
The beauty of Cinema is that it takes the viewer into a world that many not have ever imagined nor experienced. It can entertain and enlighten. It can scare the beejeezus out of you. It can affirm that whatever you are feeling, you are never alone with those emotions. It has been weeks since I saw ALL OF US STRANGERS – an exhilarating, masterful work that left me breathless – and it triggered something in me that reminded me why I love Movies. It took me into a world of unrequited love of family wrapped in a cocoon of a fantasy, supernatural Romance.
Andrew Scott plays Adam, a middle-aged Screenwriter currently suffering from Writer’s Block. Melancholia drapes him like a wet overcoat and he lives alone in a new apartment complex in London, which appears to only have one other tenant. When that tenant, Harry (Paul Mescal) knocks on Adam’s door late one night, looking rumpled, with a bottle of Whiskey in his hands and offering “companionship”, he is politely but assertively rebuffed. Regretting his decision, he eventually strikes up a relationship with his sexy neighbour and Adam finds himself drawn back to his family home where his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), who were killed in a car accident when Adam was 12, are still alive and unaged. Living a numbed existence for decades, this ghostly reunion with his parents and his new romance with Harry, Adam’s journey and revelations seduces the movie audience into emotional unchartered territories.
Writer/Director Andrew Haigh (Weekend, 45 Years, Lean on Pete) has surpassed my expectations. He excels at portraying relationships, both straight or gay; romantic or familial, with unsentimental clarity and remarkable insight. With ALL OF US STRANGERS, he elicits performances from his Cast of four that are staggering. Bell’s role as Adam’s father may be the least impactful, but watching him interact to his son may be one of the most gripping scenes in this Movie. When Adam tells his mother he is gay and was bullied a lot as a child, Foy’s reactions will have you smiling, then reaching for the tissues. What she achieves in those moments would have Meryl Streep give her a standing ovation while throwing flowers at her feet. Let’s face it – we all know that Mescal is one of most talented working young Actors and what he achieves here, with incredible subtlety and finesse is genuinely astonishing. How his character just looks at Adam is masterclass at intimacy and delicacy. Most of us know Scott from his role as the “Hot Priest” priest in “Fleabag”, but I am truly at a loss of superlatives as to what this prolific Actor gifted us in ALL OF US STRANGERS. The on-screen chemistry between him and Mescal sizzles with both eroticism and despondency, which I will slightly attribute to both these Actors being of Irish descent (!). When he is told by his parents that they are proud of him, the single teardrop dropping to his tentative smile will be forever etched in my soul. It is simultaneously of the most heartwarming and heart-tugging scene of 2023.
If you watched Team Mr. Will’s Top Tens video, you already know I had ALL OF US STRANGERS as my number two choice. Truthfully, it literally came down to a coin toss. I was, am and forever will be obsessed with this extraordinary and exquisite cinematic masterpiece.
Searchlight Pictures release ALL OF US STRANGERS January 12, 2024.
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