Good Reading resident film reviewer, Clive Hodges, shares with us his thoughts on the film, All of Us Strangers.

Classification: MA15+ (drug use, coarse language)

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes; in English

Director/scriptwriter: Andrew Haigh

Genre: mystery, drama, romance

Andrew Haigh, the director/scriptwriter adapted Strangers, the novel by Taichi Yamada, and changed the name to All of Us Strangers. A friend suggested that many people do not divulge their thoughts and fears to others and hence, we’re all strangers.

Adam, the main character in this complex film, is a writer who is suffering from writer’s block. He lives in an apartment in a building that has only two tenants. Harry, the other tenant, knocks on Adam’s door and introduces himself. Harry is gay, tipsy and amorous. Adam doesn’t let him in. We then see Adam in a supermarket where a man around Adam’s age – early 40s – indicates that he is Adam’s father and takes him home where his mother is pleased to see him. This development is a bit of a surprise as Adam’s parents were killed in a car crash, 30 years earlier, when Adam was aged 11.

The mystery that viewers need to work out is which part of the film is real and which part is in Adam’s imagination, a story that he’s making-up to overcome his writer’s block.

Adam had a traumatic childhood even before his parents died. He was bullied at school as he was ‘different’. He was not able to talk this over with his parents as he suspected what it was, and thought his parents would stop loving him if they knew. As three adults, all approaching middle-age, he now raises the topic with them. Sadness, heartache, regret … and superb acting by Adam, his mum and dad. We forget that it’s in Adam’s imagination. We are in there, hoping that all will be resolved.

The second strand of the film is Adam’s gay relationship with Harry. This is awkward, tender, loving and, we hope, long-lasting. But is this real or only in Adam’s imagination?

All of Us Strangers is absorbing, thought-provoking and puzzling. It has an MA15+ classification but the sex scenes are restrained. We do, however, see a glimpse of a naked male buttock. It’s a film that will divide audiences. How much was real and how much was in Adam’s imagination? Did Adam and Harry live happily ever after or did they go downhill, overcome by deep-down trauma, self-hatred and a life of therapy?

The film is coming to the end of its cinema release but will be on Pay-TV very soon.

Rating: Four stars

Reviewed by Clive Hodges