Searchlight Pictures /Courtesy Everett Collection
Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series spotlighting the year’s most talked-about scripts continues with Andrew Haigh’s romantic fantasy All of Us Strangers. Haigh directs and wrote the film that’s loosely inspired by Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel Strangers.
One night in his empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam (Andrew Scott) has a chance encounter with his neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal) that punctures the rhythms of his everyday life. As Adam and Harry get closer, Adam is pulled back to his childhood home where it appears his long-dead parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) are both living and look the same age as the day they died 30 years before.
The film premiered to acclaim at Telluride and has gone on to play myriad festivals including New York, London and AFI.
When Haigh’s longtime editor Jonathan Alberts first read the script, he saw that the writer-director was entering into new territory. “It felt to me…like what you were trying to do was a little different than what you’ve done before,” Alberts told Haigh on Deadline’s The Process, “within the same Andrew Haigh kind of family, but certainly something that wasn’t exactly what you were comfortable with, maybe.”
Explained Haigh, “Usually, my films are pretty based within a grounded reality, and so trying to make something that was taking off from reality pretty quickly within the story was certainly a little bit nerve-wracking.”
The other most daunting aspect of the project for the filmmaker was the fact that, while not autobiographical, it was nonetheless extremely personal to him. “People who know me know how much of me is within the film… You’re essentially saying, ‘If you don’t like this, I’m going to feel like it means you don’t like me, on a very basic, personal level.’”
All of Us Strangers swept the British Independent Film Awards in early December, taking seven prizes total including Best Film, Director, Screenplay and Supporting Performance, along with three craft wins.
Although it ultimately walked away empty-handed, it led with the most Gotham Awards nominations. At next February’s Film Independent Spirit Awards, it’s up for three prizes including Best Film, Director and Lead Performance.
Searchlight has set a limited domestic release for the film beginning today.
Click below to read the script:
