The power of love
Terrific, tear-jerking tale of loss and longing is already a contender for best film of 2024
ALL OF US STRANGERS (15)
WHEN we lose someone we love, one understandable human response is to conduct imaginary conversations or sporadically wallow in the agonising “what ifs” that linger in their absence.
Writer-director Andrew Haigh’s achingly beautiful ghost story, adapted from the novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, perfectly encapsulates this deep sense of wistful longing and our insatiable need for love and connection.
The story unfolds through the eyes of a 45-year-old man, who magically reconnects with the parents he lost in a car crash just before he turned 12.
“Is this real?” asks Andrew Scott’s lonely screenwriter, who has been suffering a creative block as he attempts to channel childhood memories into words on a laptop screen.
A fantastical reunion with parental phantoms (played by Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) at his childhood home soothes his fractured heart but nothing lasts for ever. Then a charming neighbour (Paul Mescal) scales the emotional barricades he has erected following that devastating loss in 1987.
The chemistry between Scott and Mescal is like molten lava and Haigh choreographs electrifying sex scenes with artful sensitivity.
It may only be January but Haigh’s profoundly moving drama is sure to be one of the best films of the year.
From the opening scene of blinding rays of twilight sun reflecting off a polished shard of the London skyline, All Of Us Strangers seduces the senses.
The heady fragrance of 1980s nostalgia wafts through every frame, supported by a soundtrack of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Fine Young Cannibals, The Housemartins and Pet Shop Boys.
Being human is messy, and Haigh’s exquisite screenwriting captures a maelstrom of conflicting emotions, like a breathtaking scene between Bell and Scott when the father belatedly apologises for not comforting his boy: “I’m sorry I never came into your room when I heard you crying.”
Tears will flow unreservedly.
In cinemas now