© Fox Searchlight & Film 4But after watching 'All of Us Strangers,' it is clear that Andrew Scott has been the biggest victim of a mugging during awards season.
It's bad enough that Scott didn't get rewarded with a Best Actor Oscar nomination.
But to not even receive a Screen Actors Guild or BAFTA nomination - especially when his co-stars Claire Foy and Paul Mescal did in the latter - is just baffling.
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
Scott turns in a performance of such grace and depth in Andrew Haigh's magical realist romantic drama, it kind of blows every other performance of the past year out of the water.
In Haigh's film he is Adam, a screenwriter living in a London tower block where there is only one other resident, Paul Mescal's Harry.
The two of them meet after an emergency alarm in the tower block sounds one night.
Adam dutifully evacuates the building but Harry remains, hovering at the window inside his flat.
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
Returning to his apartment, there's a knock on Adam's door and a stocious Harry introduces himself, clutching a bottle of whisky and hoping to be invited in.
The writer makes polite conversation with his neighbour but rebuffs Harry's suggestion.
Adam is struggling to write a screenplay in his flat and is toying with something autobiographical, leafing through old photographs and a box of childhood belongings.
As part of his research, he revisits the suburban neighbourhood where he lived until he was 12 when his parents, played by Claire Foy and Jamie Bell, were killed in a car crash.
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
Revisiting old haunts, Adam is stunned to see his dad in a field near the family house and follows him to a corner shop where his father buys cigarettes and beckons him home.
Soon Adam is sitting in the living room of what once was his family's house casually talking to his mum and dad about his life as it is now.
Returning to his home in London, Adam comes across Harry waiting at the lift in the tower block.
In an awkward encounter, he cackhandedly invites him to join him for a drink.
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
Eventually Harry obliges and a romantic relationship starts.
But as their relationship progresses and Adam frequently returns to his family home to meet the ghosts of his mum and dad, he has to navigate telling them about his sexuality.
Adam also has to handle the emotions his trips stir up about his parents' death.
Haigh has adapted 'All of Us Strangers' from the Japanese author Taichi Yamada's 1987 novel 'Strangers' which was in turn adapted for the big screen as Nobuhiko Obayashi's 'The Discarnates'.
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
What 'All of Us Strangers' shares with the novel is the notion of everyday ghosts.
This is not your typical Gothic rendering.
Bell and Foy's ghosts are an ordinary suburban English couple with 1980s attitudes, rooted in 1980s fashion and with a love of 1980s music.
They're about the same age as Adam but they are still maternal and paternal towards him, taking an interest in his life as it is now and worrying about his life choices.
.jpeg)
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
The arrival of Harry fills another void in Adam's life, allowing him to explore what it means to love and be loved.
Haigh's film, however, is mostly a profound meditation on grief and the need to come to terms with the past.
In some respects, it is very reminiscent of Anthony Minghella's 'Truly, Madly, Deeply' which was also matter of fact about the visits of Alan Rickman's dead cellist to Juliet Stevenson's grieving wife.
But it is also a film which measures the strides that have been made in the way society regards members of the LGBTQ community.
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
Like 'Truly, Madly, Deeply', it needs strong performances to pull it off and boy does it deliver.
Scott is superb, very quickly establishing a rapport with the audience with a very believable, fragile performance.
While dominating proceedings, he gels really well with Mescal, Foy and Bell - enabling them to glow.
Foy is convincing as Adam's mum, thoroughly deserving her BAFTA Best Supporting Actress nod.
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
Bell also shines, capturing the awkwardness of a father who occasionally says the wrong things.
Mescal is terrific as well, imbuing Harry with melancholy and real empathy.
All four performances should have received awards season recognition.
But writer director Haigh, cinematographer Jamie D Ramsey, film editor Jonathan Alberts and composer Emilie Levienaise-Farouch are also deserving.
.jpeg)
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
Haigh and Ramsey deliver some really memorable sequences - the latter using LED lighting and different film stocks to give audiences a metaphysical experience of the dual worlds Adam traverses.
Music is integral to creating the otherworldly feel of the film, with Levienaise-Farouch delivering a well judged, subtle score.
Haigh also touchingly deploys the Pet Shop Boys' chart topping cover of 'Always On My Mind' during a Christmas scene to ram home the deep connection between Adam and his parents.
Tracks by Fine Young Cannibals ('Johnny Come Home'), The Housemartins ('Build'), Alison Moyet ('Is This Love?'), and Frankie Goes To Hollywood ('The Power of Love') are brilliantly woven into the film.
© Fox Searchlight & Film 4
Although the standout needle drop is Blur's Gorillaz prototype track 'Death of A Party' in a pivotal sequence where Adam and Harry go to a nightclub during a visit which triggers traumatic memories.
In a year where we will again be subjected to hollow action films, few movies will match the power of the emotional sucker punches of 'All of Us Strangers'.
Having given us superb dramas like 'Weekend,' '45 Years' and 'Lean On Pete,' it confirms Haigh as one of the most thoughtful and talented filmmakers of his generation.
The film's failure to receive wider industry recognition is one the starkest examples in recent times of just how ridiculous awards season really is.
('All of Us Strangers' was released in the UK and Ireland on January 26, 2024)
Comments
Post a Comment