The sun rises over London. In the window pane of a high-rise building, we see a man's face and his shirtless upper body gradually appear through the light’s double reflection. He turns, sits down by his computer and types: “suburban house, 1987.“ Then a fire alarm goes off. These first scenes in ALL OF US STRANGERS, the new film by Andrew Haigh (LOOKING, 45 YEARS) are the only ones that are most likely set in reality. The rest might be literature, memories, dreams, hallucinations, imaginings, or perhaps the story that Adam is currently writing.

Adam (Andrew Scott) leaves his building during the fire alarm and looks back at the building. Only two windows are lit: his window and another one a few flights higher, where another man is standing by the window, like him. The man, Harry (Paul Mescal) appears at his door a bit later, drunk, a bottle of Japanese whiskey in his hand. He wants to chat, but Adam doesn’t let him in. Adam’s inability to let someone into his life is the big topic of this film. Adam and Harry are the only residents of this building in the middle of London, which is unbelievable in itself. Where does such a building exist if not in one’s imagination?

Adam is a man who can’t enter long-term relationships because of his fear of loss. His parents died in a car accident when he was 12. “That’s a long time ago,“ he says to Harry, whom he has sex with after all. “I don’t think that matters“ says Harry, and it seems as though this sentence triggers something.

Adam looks at old photographs. He drives to the suburb, compares a house with one of the photos, goes to a park and sees a man (Jamie Bell) who looks at him and invites him to follow him. This seems like an anonymous cruise at first. Adam follows the man to a kiosk, where the man buys schnapps and cigarettes. The man comes out and says: “and where should we go?“ “Where to?“ “Where to? Home.“ The man, a bit younger than Adam, is his dead father, and they really do go home together, where his dead mother (Claire Foy) immediately recognizes her adult son. During numerous visits, the parents and the adult son process their relationship. “Mum“ has to comes to grips with Adam being gay. Dad has a guilty conscience for being distant and absent, but has less problems with his son’s gayness. The visits to his parents are interspersed with encounters with Harry, as though they are crucial for the course of their relationship. Adam has to overcome his childhood trauma in order to open up to the unstable Harry, but the fear of another loss rules over his life.

Andrew Haigh succeeds – like he did in 45 YEARS, which was based on a short story by Johann Peter Hebel – in making a touching and elegant film based on a completely literary idea and developing his very own style that is most reminiscent of Robert Bresson. The camerawork conjures up Adam’s soul landscape: the almost empty high rise, the empty city. Like BEAU IS AFRAID, ALL OF US STRANGERS is an interior view of depression, fear, and loneliness, but in Andrew Haigh’s film there’s the abyss as well as the hope of stepping out of it. One of the best films of the year.

Tom Dorow

Translation: Elinor Lewy