Review
DULCIE PEARCE
All Of Us Strangers review: A deep and often devastating portrayal of grief
Director Andrew Haigh creates a raw and tender picture, with all actors giving sensational performances
ALL OF US STRANGERS
(15) 105mins
★★★★☆
“I SEE dead people” became one of the most famous quotes in film 25 years ago.
And while there’s not a line as catchy in this beautiful film as the one from The Sixth Sense, the premise is the same. Although a little less spooky.
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This is a deep and often devastating portrayal of grief, where Adam (Andrew Scott) is a gay, single man entering middle age.
He’s a writer and lives alone in a soulless tower block in London.
He soon meets Harry (Paul Mescal), who is equally lonely and lives in the same block.
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They both crave company; a connection — both physical and mental — and someone to share their sad tales with.
Car crash
Adam’s is the sudden death of both his parents in a car crash when he was a child. He is writing about it, he tells Harry.
And soon he finds himself able to visit his long-departed parents in his old family home.
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They are stuck in the 1980s, with his mum (Claire Foy) and dad (Jamie Bell) talking to him as the man he is now.
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They long to know about his life and who he became. Yet never are they too soppy or overly tactile. They are perfectly British about the strange situation.
Adam tells them how he was bullied as a child and that he is now openly gay.
It is something his parents find difficult to comprehend, with his mum asking: “Aren’t you worried about people saying things? And what about this awful disease I keep reading about?”
These conversations are both uneasy to watch but also strangely calm and gentle.
And, as a viewer, it causes you to reflect on what you might say now to someone you loved who had died.
What could you teach them about modern life and how would they react?
While commitment-phobe Adam is spending much needed time with his stuck-in-time parents, he also forms a sexual — and then very loving — relationship with Harry.
And the pair begin to save each other from their demons.
Inspired by Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers, the director Andrew Haigh creates a raw and tender picture, with all four actors giving sensational performances.
The only improvement would be one extra scene to find out who Adam truly is, without ghosts or lovers to distract him.
But, perhaps, he wants to stay a stranger.
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JACKDAW
(15) 97mins
★★☆☆☆
THERE’S a dearth of gritty British thrillers located outside the M25.
So the Hartlepool-shot Jackdaw is a refreshing if not middling neo-noir from TV writer-director Jamie Childs in his feature debut.
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Set over one chaotic night, Jack Dawson (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) agrees to steal a mysterious package from the middle of the North Sea for criminal Silas (Joe Blakemore) in a bid to make ends meet for him and his younger brother Simon.
The Army veteran gets double crossed, of course, and spends a fretful evening trying to save Simon after he is kidnapped.
Jack’s ex Bo is played by Jenna Coleman.
With a hardcore EDM score, low-key lighting and shots of factories and derelict warehouses, it has a dystopian vibe.
But the story is pretty lean and doesn’t balance the shift between serious, whimsical and comedic.
The script is hampered by superficial characters and clichéd dialogue that rarely seems natural – the delightful Thomas Turgoose being the exception.
Jackdaw has some style and a few dicey action set pieces, but its hero’s journey is never as compelling as it thinks it is.
- Hanna Flint
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THE COLOR PURPLE
(12A) 141mins
★★☆☆☆
THIS screen-to-stage-then-back-to-screen adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel has, in typical movie musical fashion, blunted its edges.
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The coming-of-age story follows Celie (Phylicia Pearl Mpasi), a poor African-American girl in rural Georgia during the early 1900s.
She is a victim of rape, with two children fathered by her own father.
They are taken from her as babies and she is quickly married off to the sleazy Mister (an excellent Colman Domingo).
He separates Celie from her loving sister Nettie (Halle Bailey) and forces her into a harrowing life of abuse and domestic hardship.
The star-studded cast – including Fantasia Barrino as older Celie and Taraji P. Henson as blues singer Shug Avery – are up to the singing challenge.
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Still, the R&B and gospel-inspired songs almost always get in the way of the deeper emotional beats, causing the non-singing narrative to feel slight and rushed.
While Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation gave the actors ample space for the characters to grapple with their wounds, Blitz Bazawule’s tonally-jarring film skims the surface of its weighty subject matter.
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