All Of Us Strangers Review: Andrew Haigh’s Queer Fantasy Drama Is Equal Parts Haunting And Tragic

Fair warning: For the queer viewer, the film can be very triggering as it might reopen unhealed wounds from their past. More so, watching the film which plays out like a horrifying dream sequence in a theatre can be even more nerve-racking so one is advised to exercise caution. (Image via X)

Based on Japanese author Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers, Andrew Haigh’s film All Of Us Strangers follows Adam (played by Andrew Scott), a queer writer who reconnects with his long-lost parents in an attempt to get the validation and acceptance he never received as a child. In a devastating plot twist, it is revealed that the adult Adam is hallucinating (or at the very least, his parents are ghosts and therefore not real).

Adam imagines his parents offering him an apology he deserves. He receives one from his father who heard him cry as a kid in his bedroom but never so much as consoled him for that would mean accepting he raised a boy who gets bullied at school. In a surreal scene, Adam’s homophobic mother, who is still caught up on the AIDS crisis of the ‘90s, sings him an apology while decorating a Christmas tree.

Add to Adam’s blooming romance with Harry (played by Paul Mescal) — their drug-induced benders in dimly-lit nightclubs and steamy make-out sessions in Adam’s apartment and we have a haunting queer fantasy drama which sums up succinctly and quite painfully, what it feels like to grow up as a queer kid in a conservative household.

All Of Us Strangers is a devastating watch—one where the emotional blows are too intense and way too many. Haigh doesn’t soften any of these blows and delivers them abrasively—the shot of the three milkshakes after Adam’s parents vanish in the restaurant is one such gut punch that stays with the viewer for a long time.

The grief the viewer feels at this point multiplies when Adam discovers Harry’s dead body. After having gained acceptance from his parents to pursue Harry (and in the process, resolved his childhood trauma), Adam finds out that Harry died by suicide. The winner of LGBTQ+ Film of the Year at the 2024 Dorian awards, All Of Us Strangers address the sheer loneliness that comes with being a queer person.

Long after one is done watching the film, one realises that Harry knocked at Adam’s door and quite desperately pleaded with him to let him into his apartment—complete with a reference to the song Power of Love (“There’s vampires at my door”)—because he was lonely and that if left to his own devices, he knew would self-harm. Due to his childhood trauma, Adam couldn’t have let Harry in or as much imagined a relationship with him without gaining the acceptance of his parents.

Fair warning: For the queer viewer, the film can be very triggering as it might reopen unhealed wounds from their past. More so, watching the film which plays out like a horrifying dream sequence in a theatre can be even more nerve-racking so one is advised to exercise caution. Unlike Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster, All Of Us…doesn’t leave us with an ambiguous ending. My vision turned blurry with tears as I watched Adam and Harry lie down on a bed and turn into stars in a galaxy.

Were both of them ghosts? Or was it just Adam? Technicalities are far too many and open to interpretation, but the emotion is universal. Months having watched the film, I still find it hard to shake off the image of child Adam sitting on a subway train, his head distorted into his reflection of the glass as he calls “Mommy” for help—the desperate screams of the wounded inner child begging to be seen.

All Of Us Strangers is tragic. The film is also beautiful for it taps into the psyche of adult queers, cuts open their unhealed childhood wounds and forces them to feel the pain of not having received the validation they deserved. One might ask—what’s beauty in feeling this pain? Feeling this pain allows the inner child to be heard and to be seen. In many ways, feeling this pain is a way to honor the inner child in you and to heal the wounds that haven’t been tended to all this while.

All Of Us Strangers is streaming now on Disney+ Hotstar.