I felt sure that I had reviewed All of Us Strangers here earlier on this year but that turns out to be a mirage.
I did give it a bit of a rave for RNZ’s At the Movies, though, maybe that’s what I was thinking about.
The whole review is over 700 words so I’m not going print the whole thing here. Instead, here are some highlights and you can listen to the whole thing via the RNZ audio player (7m56s):
Andrew Haigh’s new film, All of Us Strangers, presents early on as a kind of ghost story but as it continues it gets stranger, deeper – defying literal interpretation – refusing to provide standard story answers until it reaches a climax that is so beautiful and surreal and profound that it takes your breath away.
It’s also a surprisingly spiritual conclusion for a writer and director who has professed his atheism in the past but the divine sense that we are all just stardust forming and reforming and never really leaving each other I found deeply moving.
…
Andrew Scott is Adam, a screenwriter with writer’s block, holed up in an apartment block listening 80s pop tunes, trying to write about his childhood. The building appears to be almost empty but one neighbour – Harry played by the amazingly gifted Paul Mescal from Aftersun – might be flirting with him and suggests a nightcap, which Adam declines.
For inspiration, Adam takes the train to his suburban childhood home where, to all of our surprise, he meets his long-dead parents (played by Jamie Bell and Claire Foy). They died in a car crash when he was twelve so there’s a lot for them catch up on, not least Adam’s sexuality which they have very 80s concerns about.
…
But I think, ahead of that, it’s about loneliness. The corrosive long term damage that loneliness does to a human. Yes, his parents are gone, but Adam’s clear when he talks to them that he was a desperately lonely, sensitive, little boy – afraid of loud fireworks but afraid of people, too. And afraid of who he was and what that might mean for his life.
Also reviewed in that edition of At the Movies was Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, which I enjoyed but was a little less enthusiastic about.
Where to watch All of Us Strangers
Aotearoa, Australia, Canada, Ireland and UK: Streaming on Disney+
USA: Streaming on Hulu
Further reading
One of my favourite local film festivals is the Resene Architecture & Design festival which opens in Auckland on 2 May. They gave me three titles to preview for RNZ and they were all excellent, although Skin of Glass absolutely blew me away.
And, in case you were wondering why I haven’t reviewed Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon - Part Two: The Scargiver on Netflix yet, after hating the first part so much, there’s no amount of money that anyone can pay me to go back there.
Editor’s note
Tomorrow is a public holiday in Aotearoa New Zealand (Anzac Day) so there will be no 3.15pm update. Thanks to all the new paid subscribers. There’s been a pleasing flurry of activity in that area and you really do encourage me to keep going.
So what did you think of the first Rebel Moon? haha
As a fairly diehard Star Wars fan, I haven’t watched either of them because I’ve seen other Snyder movies and I’m not a big fan.