By Peg Aloi

No spoilers here about what lies beneath the film’s dreamy layers of story, but some viewers will find the narrative pulling them helplessly forward, sucked into a maelstrom of pain and trauma and love and regret and memory.

Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott in scene from All of Us Strangers. Photo: Searchlight Pictures

Filmmaker Andrew Haigh’s newest film is an unusual and unforgettable cinematic masterpiece. At times, one feels set adrift while watching All of Us Strangers, unable to determine what precisely is happening. This uncertainty mirrors what the protagonist Adam (played by Andrew Scott of Fleabag and Black Mirror) goes through as he embarks on a journey to reconcile his past trauma with his present pain and loneliness. The film opens with a colorful sunset landscape: Adam’s face is superimposed over it. He seems to be a solitary character in a dreamy world. The action begins with Adam sitting at his desk, an empty notebook and darkened laptop in front of him, staring out the window. We next see him lying on a couch, aimlessly crunching on digestive biscuits and listening to the news. As he opens the fridge, looking to see if any of his leftover take-away containers might be worth heating up, a fire alarm goes off. Outside, in the shadow of his high-rise apartment building, Adam looks up to see one apartment lit up, and a man moving in the window. The city of London is quiet and dark around him.

He goes back in and there’s a knock at his door. Harry (Paul Mescal), a friendly, scruffy, slightly drunk young man is holding a half-empty bottle of whiskey; he says he glimpsed Adam looking at him and asks if he can come in. Energy crackles between them: the building is empty except for these two and they’re both curious why no other tenants have moved in. This odd situation is our first clue that things in the world of this film are slightly off-kilter. Adam is tempted by Harry’s offer, but his jovial mood and quick come-on are both a bit much. Adam closes the door. The next time they see each other it is in their building’s elevator. Harry seems embarrassed and apologizes for the earlier intrusion, but Adam smooths things over. He hints that he likes whiskey and the two of them could have a drink together. This time it is Harry who walks away.

Once they eventually get together, Harry says he’s off booze and Adam invites him to smoke some weed. Learning that Adam is single, Harry sweetly offers to kiss him: his sensual, slow moves literally leave Adam breathless with desire. Indeed, Harry’s consistent kindness, compassion, and gentleness seem almost too good to be true. After years of solitude, the emotional balm Harry offers nearly overwhelms Adam. That erotic attraction is palpable to the viewer, and the film’s bewitching intimacy is only beginning.

Harry and Adam decide they’d like to see each other again. Adam returns to his writing project, a screenplay that begins with the interior of a suburban house. At this point the film takes an intriguing, though not particularly abrupt, step into an entirely different place and reality. Adam goes through a box of objects from his childhood, and then takes a train to his former home. He finds the home, comparing it to an old photo, and then walks to a large open expanse of meadow bordered by a forest. He notices a young man looking back at him, just before the guy disappears through the trees. Adam follows him and catches up with him in an off-license buying a bottle of whiskey. The man (Jamie Bell of Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool) greets him with warmth — though not by name — then asks him, “Shall we go?” Adam smiles: “Go where?” “Home,” says the man, and we begin to understand the narrative twist. What we assumed might be a casual liaison with a stranger is, in fact, a reunion with his father, who appears to be even younger than Adam (and who bears a slight but uncanny resemblance to Harry).

The film’s realism now goes topsy-turvy, with a hint of mystery. Adam and his dad return to a warm, well-lit Tudor style house. Adam arrived in summer, but suddenly it seems to be Christmas. They enter the comfortable home, where Adam is embraced by his mother (The Crown’s Claire Foy). They behave as if he’s come for a visit after being away at college or work for a number of years. But why has it been so long since they’ve seen him? And it doesn’t make sense — why do they look younger than he? They ask Adam about his life, and tell him they’re proud. He promises to come back soon. On the train home, he looks happy and sad and overwhelmed.

Back in London, Harry notices Adam has a slight fever and draws him a hot bath. He nurtures Adam, who we now understand is having an existential crisis. He needs to be loved and cared for. As Adam returns to visit his mum and dad, and grows even closer to Harry, the intersecting trajectories of his past and present blur. Harry doesn’t understand what’s happening, but Adam’s parents do, though they resist revealing a truth whose disclosure is painful but inevitable.

Haigh blends past and present worlds seamlessly. The alternative dimensions have been brilliantly fused: the music choices infuse the characters’ encounters with emotion and tension, the lighting lends an ethereal sense of ghostliness and moody weather. The director crafts scenes that seem both immediate and timeless. It is as if, through Adam’s mercurial psychological journey, we’re been granted a glimpse at a deeply human yet numinous phenomenon. In one sparkling insight after another, we grasp the film’s revelations about the fragility of existence. We want the film to be gentle with us but we fear, and deep down we know, it won’t be.

No spoilers here about what lies beneath the film’s phantasmic layers of story, but some viewers will find the narrative pulling them forward helplessly, sucking them into a maelstrom of pain and trauma and love and regret and memory. As Adam’s story unfolds, it’s not entirely clear what is real and what is imagined — but it doesn’t really matter. Anchored in four incandescent performances, All of Us Strangers dramatizes primal emotional truths with a tender relentlessness.

Peg Aloi is a former film critic for the Boston Phoenix and member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Alliance for Women Film Journalists. She taught film studies in Boston for over a decade. She writes on film, TV, and culture for web publications like Time, Vice, Polygon, Bustle, Mic, Orlando Weekly, and Bloody Disgusting. Her blog “The Witching Hour” can be found on substack.