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All of Us Strangers (2023)
Quite simply the most emotionally devastating film experience.
Andrew Scott plays Adam, who lives a lonely, isolated existence in a high rise flat and is trying to write a screenplay about his parents. He meets a neighbour, Harry (Paul Mescal), by chance and rebuffs his advances. Adam travels to where he lived as a child, where he unexpectedly meets his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), still the same age as when he lost them, the house likewise unchanged. As he has a series of cathartic conversations with his parents, he begins to be able to let Harry into his life.
A ghost story about loss and longing, this undeniably personal film works so well because of the attention to detail. The 1980s period detail is spot on, so too are the observations about generational differences and how things come around (Harry, younger than Adam, sports a similar moustache to Adam's dad and prefers 'queer' to 'gay'). But the things that are the same are telling, too: while Adam listens to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, his dad puts on a record from his own childhood. Everyone has their ghosts.
It's very well filmed, lots of shots of people seen in reflections and behind glass reflecting the way we don't always see people clearly and wholly. It's also very well acted by all four of the main actors.
I was in tears through most of the scenes between Adam and his parents, and I definitely wasn't the only one. It made me think of Aftersun, in some ways, in its exploration of childhood memories and parent-child relationships.
A really incredible film.
Quite simply the most emotionally devastating film experience.
Andrew Scott plays Adam, who lives a lonely, isolated existence in a high rise flat and is trying to write a screenplay about his parents. He meets a neighbour, Harry (Paul Mescal), by chance and rebuffs his advances. Adam travels to where he lived as a child, where he unexpectedly meets his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), still the same age as when he lost them, the house likewise unchanged. As he has a series of cathartic conversations with his parents, he begins to be able to let Harry into his life.
A ghost story about loss and longing, this undeniably personal film works so well because of the attention to detail. The 1980s period detail is spot on, so too are the observations about generational differences and how things come around (Harry, younger than Adam, sports a similar moustache to Adam's dad and prefers 'queer' to 'gay'). But the things that are the same are telling, too: while Adam listens to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, his dad puts on a record from his own childhood. Everyone has their ghosts.
It's very well filmed, lots of shots of people seen in reflections and behind glass reflecting the way we don't always see people clearly and wholly. It's also very well acted by all four of the main actors.
I was in tears through most of the scenes between Adam and his parents, and I definitely wasn't the only one. It made me think of Aftersun, in some ways, in its exploration of childhood memories and parent-child relationships.
A really incredible film.