All of Us Strangers SA Release

All of Us Strangers Releasing in South African cinemas nationwide on 26 January 2024

All of Us Strangers is a 2023 British romantic fantasy film written and directed by Andrew Haigh, and based on the 1987 novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada. It is the second feature adaptation of the novel, after the Japanese film The Discarnates (1988).

Lonely London screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) is flirted with by his drunk neighbour Harry (Paul Mescal), whom he rebuffs. He visits his unoccupied childhood home and finds his parents, who died in a car accident when he was eleven. Returning to his apartment, he reciprocates Harry’s interest and they have sex. Adam comes out as gay to his mother, who accepts him but reacts with concern. He has sex with Harry again, and then Harry describes his own feelings of distance from his family.

Adam talks to his father during his next visit, who accepts him for who he is and tearfully reconciles with him over the bullying he faced as a child. Adam and Harry go clubbing and do ketamine together, causing Adam to imagine a long-term relationship with him, then black out and wake up in his parents’ house on Christmas. Unable to sleep, he gets in bed with them and tells his mother about how he was sent to stay with her mother after her death, but they are interrupted by Harry appearing in bed with them.

Adam wakes on a train and pursues Harry onto another, seeing a vision of his younger self screaming in the reflection of the window before waking in his bed, Harry having taken him home after he panicked while high. He tells Harry about how his father died instantly but his mother lingered for several days, though his grandmother kept him from seeing her, and how their deaths grew into a great terror of being alone. He decides to show Harry his parents but finds the house empty, though Harry catches a glimpse of them as Adam breaks a window to get in.

Waking the next morning with no wound on his hand, Adam’s parents explain that Harry left and tell him that he needs to let them go and move on to be happy. They take him to his favourite childhood restaurant, where he tells them they both died instantly when asked. They reaffirm their pride for him and love for each other as they vanish.

Having accepted the loss of his parents, Adam goes to see Harry but finds him long dead in his flat’s bedroom, holding the same bottle he was drinking from on the night they met, now empty. Outside the room, Adam assures Harry’s distraught ghost that everything will be all right and takes him back to his flat, where they get in bed together and Adam plays “The Power of Love” by Frankie Goes to Hollywood when Harry asks him to choose a song.

Searchlight Pictures presents, in Association with Film4 and TSG Entertainment, a Blueprint Pictures Production, All Of Us Strangers, produced by Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin, Sarah Harvey. Written and Directed by Andrew Haigh, inspired by the novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada, the film stars Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, with Jamie Bell and Claire Foy. Cinematography is by Jamie D. Ramsay, SASC, with production design by Sarah Finlay, costume design by Sarah Blenkinsop, hair and make-up by Zoe Clare Brown. The editor is Jonathan Alberts, ACE, with the music by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch.