All of Us Strangers Set for a December 22 Release

Searchlight Pictures has revealed the official trailer for All of Us Strangers, the British romantic fantasy film written and directed by Andrew Haigh. The movie is inspired by the novel Strangers by Taichi Yamada (buy at Amazon).

Produced by Graham Broadbent, Pete Czernin and Sarah Harvey, All of Us Strangers stars Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy. The movie opens in theaters on December 22 and is rated R for sexual content, language and some drug use.

One night in his near-empty tower block in contemporary London, Adam (Andrew Scott) has a chance encounter with a mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal), which punctures the rhythm of his everyday life.

As a relationship develops between them, Adam is preoccupied with memories of the past and finds himself drawn back to the suburban town where he grew up, and the childhood home where his parents (Claire Foy and Jamie Bell), appear to be living, just as they were on the day they died, 30 years before.

The Searchlight Pictures release is presented in association with Film4 and TSG Entertainment and is a Blueprint Pictures production.

The cinematography is by Jamie D. Ramsay, SASC, with production design by Sarah Finlay, costume design by Sarah Blenkinsop, and hair and make-up by Zoe Clare Brown. The editor is Jonathan Alberts, ACE, with the music by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch.

You can watch the official trailer by clicking here. Read on to learn more about the project.

All of Us Strangers is the latest film from British filmmaker Andrew Haigh (Lean on Pete, 45 Years, Weekend). The hauntingly poignant and hypnotic story of loss and love (and everything in between), is inspired by the novel Strangers by venerable Japanese author Taichi Yamada. First penned in 1987 and translated into English in 2003, Haigh’s adapted screenplay gives it a contemporary and personal touch.

In June of 2017, Graham Broadbent and Sarah Harvey of Blueprint first pitched their creative vision for the film to Yamada and his family. Said Harvey, “It was important for all of us to invest in the emotional core of the story, perhaps more so than the traditional ghost elements of the story.”

Following this, Blueprint proceeded to look for the perfect writer/director to adapt the material. They immediately sent the book to Haigh, with whom they had wanted to work with for some time. They felt he had the right sensibility – he had shown a great aptitude for nuanced character work in his films Weekend and 45 Years, as well as TV’s The North Water.

Haigh placed the story in a world more recognizable to his own. “Adapting the book was a long and sometimes painful process,” Haigh admits. “I wanted to pick away at my own past as Adam does in the film. I was interested in exploring the complexities of both familial and romantic love, but also the distinct experience of a specific generation of gay people growing up in the 80s.

“I wanted to move away from the traditional ghost story of the novel and find something more psychological, almost metaphysical.” Haigh has masterfully stuck to his word, transcending the tropes of a ‘ghost story’.

Yamada and his family were incredibly respectful of Haigh’s vision, which changed the central character of the story to a gay man, and when they ultimately read the script, they gave their blessing to make the film.

Broadbent added, “We’ve had the advantage of bringing Haigh’s extraordinary, beautiful filmmaking to a story that has dramatic, romantic and metaphysical bones – and who has a better point of view on that than him?”