For 'All of Us Strangers,' British Queer Director Andrew Haigh Went Home Again (Literally)

For "All of Us Strangers," his latest film, queer British director Andrew Haigh chose to go home again... literally. Variety wrote that the 50-year old described "All of Us Strangers" as "a spectral meditation on love and loneliness, as a deeply personal film, one infused with his own feelings about parents and relationships."

In the film, Adam (Andrew Scott), a gay man in his 40s, is living a life of quiet desperation in a starkly modern London apartment building. But his story takes a magical realistic turn when he returns home to his childhood home to find his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell) alive and well – even though they died in their 30s when Adam was a child.

But Haigh decided early on not to recreate his childhood home in a studio set. He "knocked on the door of the house he lived in until he was 7 or 8 years old and discovered that little had changed in the ensuing decades," Variety said.

"The owner agreed to let us film there," Haigh told the publication. "He hadn't really decorated it in 30 years, so all these memories came flooding back. And then we used my old photos to make it look almost exactly as it had."

For Haigh, the experience was cathartic. "It was so emotional for me, but it was also cathartic. It was a chance to re-approach my past."

In the film, Adam returns to his home trying to better understand how their loss shaped the person he became.

"I can relate to what he's feeling," Haigh said. "The child in us is essentially always there and stuff that you carry around as a kid. You think you've grown out of it, but it can bubble over, affecting how we live."

The difference between film and reality is that Haigh's parents are alive. "But even if he didn't experience the same type of tragedy as Adam, his parents' divorce when he was a preteen rattled his sense of security."

"At the same time Adam finds himself drawn back into his past," Variety reported, "a chance encounter with a 20-something neighbor (Paul Mescal) presents the prospect of a romantic future. And one of the things that makes 'All of Us Strangers' so compelling is that its four leads are from three distinct generations."

Haigh's aesthetic construct allowed him to "reflect on his experiences growing up queer in the 1980s and '90s. AIDS cast a mushroom cloud-like pall over everything, and homophobia was rampant. There's a moment in 'All of Us Strangers' where Adam comes out to his mother, and her reaction is not one of disgust or unyielding support, but deep concern," Variety said of the film.

One fear Haigh had in making "All of Us Strangers" is that his film would not relate to younger queer people. Instead, screenings at the Telluride Film Festival and the New York Film Festival showed him that "that the film's themes of buried pain and isolation resonate," added Variety.

"It's interesting talking to younger gay people because we're always told that everything is better now, but that doesn't mean that they aren't still struggling and they don't feel separated from their family," Haigh saids. "And lots of people who aren't queer take something from it. It hits people in different ways, but I think everyone feels alone some time."

"All of Us Strangers" is scheduled for theatrical release on December 22.

Read Haigh's full comments to Variety here.

Watch the trailer below: