Paul Mescal is giving Andrew Scott the chance of a lifetime: to speak with his deceased parents.
Mescal and Scott co-lead “All of Us Strangers,” written and directed by Andrew Haigh (“Weekend”).
One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, screenwriter Adam (Scott) has a chance encounter with his mysterious neighbor Harry (Mescal) that punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As Adam and Harry get closer, Adam is pulled back to his childhood home where it appears his long-dead parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) are both living and look the same age as the day they died 30 years before.
“All of Us Strangers” is produced by Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, and Sarah Harvey and was previously known as “Strangers,” with the film being loosely based on Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel of the same name.
The feature screened at Telluride and will make its New York premiere at NYFF. IndieWire critic David Ehrlich wrote that “All of Us Strangers” is a “nuclear-grade tearjerker” that showcases filmmaker Haigh’s stunning storytelling techniques that “hit like a velvet hammer.”
“His screenplay so movingly echoes Adam’s yearning to be known — across time and space — that the film always feels rooted in his emotional present, even as it pings back and forth between dimensions,” Ehrlich wrote in his Grade A- IndieWire review. “People are products of their time, and yet the fear of vulnerability is universal. Cosmic. Interstellar. And so Haigh, in rather overt terms, slowly begins to re-contextualize Adam’s sexuality as more of a conduit for his despondency than a root cause, leveraging a personal story about the consequences of keeping pain out into a primordial one about the catharsis of letting it in.”
Haigh was previously in the awards conversation with his marriage drama “45 Years,” starring Best Actress nominee Charlotte Rampling as a woman coming apart from her husband. He’s also best beloved for the “Before Sunrise”-esque gay romance “Weekend” and his contributions to the cult HBO series “Looking,” including directing its direct-to-HBO TV movie which subbed in for a third season. Searchlight Pictures will push “All of Us Strangers” into the awards fray, with Mescal a 2023 Best Actor nominee for “Aftersun.”
“All of Us Strangers” premieres December 22 in theaters. Check out the trailer below.
