‘All of Us Strangers’ Review: A Lonely Gay Man Explores Missed Connections in Andrew Haigh’s Latest Heartbreaker
Peter Debruge Chief Film Critic The best scene of “Call Me by Your Name” has nothing to do with fruit, but a frank father-son conversation.
Brittle to the point of breaking, Timothée Chalamet sits on the couch, arms crossed, resenting his dad for acknowledging the source of his anguish. “You’re too smart not to know how rare, how special, what you two had was,” Michael Stuhlbarg tells the boy. “I may have come close, but I never had what you two have. … How you live your life is your business.” Gay men rarely receive that kind of acceptance from anyone, much less their parents, and hearing those words uttered in “Call Me by Your Name” went a long way to heal that wound for many who didn’t get that satisfaction from their own folks.
Half a dozen years later, Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers” feels like a feature-length expansion of that scene — or at least the sentiment it evokes — as a gay man who never had the chance to come out to his parents returns home, surprised to find Mum and Dad waiting for him.
They died in a car crash when he was 11, but here they are, curious and caring, greeting him with hugs and unconditional love.
