Film 4 last night, so it`ll be on again.
All of Us Strangers.
Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal`s performances alone make it worth watching and it`s easy to see why the reviews are so good.
Scott plays a lonely gay man, who is still struggling to come to terms with the death of his parents when he was a boy, who lives in a newly completed tower block in London, the only other tenant in the building being Paul Mescal, another lonely gay man.
Slowly they start a relationship and eventually fall in love.
Scott is a screenwriter and as part of the research for his writing, he travels back to his childhood home in suburban Sussex, where it appears that both of his dead parents are living happily, but frozen in time from when they died ( same clothes, same music, same television programmes etc ) His parents are played with sensitivity by Jamie Bell and Claire Foy.
The grieving Scott starts spending more and more time with his dead parents, as through his grief he starts to lose his grip on reality, which in turn affects his relationship with Mescal, who`s also struggling with his own demons.
It`s achingly slow, as Scott and Mescals relationship starts to develop and Scott starts to unravel, but Scott and Mescal are spellbinding in their roles.
You`re never really sure whether what you`re seeing is real, whether Scott is dead or whether Scott has gone mad and everything you`re seeing is in his head.
It`s beautifully written and isn`t really a " ghost story ", more about how we process crippling grief and loneliness.
It won`t be a film for everyone, as it`s very slow, plus there`s some quite graphic man on man sex scenes, but if you want to watch two actors at the top of their game, this is a film for you.
Outstanding and well worthy of the near perfect reviews and awards it won.
