Searchlight Pictures’ theatrical trailer for All of Us Strangers teases the fantasy/drama without completely spoiling the storyline. Following the film’s successful festival run – it currently sits at 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes – All of Us Strangers is set to open in theaters on December 22, 2023.
Paul Mescal (Aftersun), Andrew Scott (Fleabag), Jamie Bell (Shining Girls), and Claire Foy (The Crown) star in the drama based on the novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada. Andrew Haigh (Lean on Pete, 45 Years, Weekend) adapted Yamada’s novel and directs, with Graham Broadbent, Peter Czernin, and Sarah Harvey producing. Diarmuid Mckeown, Ben Knight, Ollie Madden, Daniel Battsek, and Farhana Bhula serve as executive producers.
Searchlight Pictures offer this synopsis:
One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam (Scott) has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry (Mescal), which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life. As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents (Foy and Bell), appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before.
“What I loved about the novel was its central conceit: what if you met your parents again long after they were gone, only now they’re the same age as you? It seemed such an emotional way to explore the nature of family. That became my starting point,” explained writer/director Haigh.
Haigh admitted that adapting the book was a lengthy – and occasionally painful – process.
“I wanted to pick away at my own past as Adam does in the film,” offered Haigh. “I was interested in exploring the complexities of both familial and romantic love, but also the distinct experience of a specific generation of gay people growing up in the 80s. I wanted to move away from the traditional ghost story of the novel and find something more psychological, almost metaphysical.”
Haigh’s behind-the-scenes team includes cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay, production designer Sarah Finlay, costume designer Sarah Blenkinsop, and editor Jonathan Alberts.
