HOOOO BOY. This film is brilliant.
I’ve thought a lot about whether to try to explain the plot at all in this blog and have decided that I won’t other than to say it’s a story of grief, childhood trauma, navigating coming out as gay, imagination but most of all grief. There’s a lot of grief. Take tissues. Did I mention the grief?!
It stars Andrew Scott (AKA ‘Hot Priest’ IYKYK) and Paul Mescal and they’re both brilliant. Why aren’t they winning all the awards either?! Scott especially. His performance will move you to your flippin’ core. Did I mention you should take tissues?!
About three quarters of the way through the film I started thinking to myself, this film is so good; I can’t believe how good it is; why isn’t this film winning best picture at all the awards etc. I stand by that now.
Now. Let’s talk caveats. It’s a bit confusing BUT on that I would say, even if you don’t follow the twists, the story you think you’re watching is super compelling, so does it matter? The fact that one of the drop downs when you google “All of us strangers” is “explained” says something. Not everything is as it seems in All Of Us Strangers and in my reading online after seeing the film, I can see that some people get that as they’re watching the film and others don’t. But I reckon it doesn’t matter. But don’t let that put you off! Watch the film then read one of the explainers. Easy!
Another caveat (it’ll seem like a spoiler at first but lemme finish!) … well, trigger warning, I guess, is that if you have sensitivity for any reason around the death of a parent or both parents, I imagine this will be just too much for you. Don’t do it to yourself. Especially if the death(s) occurred when you were a child. Now I know that seems like a spoiler and of course it kind of is but the death of the parents thing is known early in the story and the whole thing is really based on that fact.
This film is up there with the best I’ve seen. Don’t miss it!
All Of Us Strangers is rated MA15+, runs 105 minutes and is in cinemas now.