Director Andrew Haigh on the journey from the emotional intimacy of his breakthrough film Weekend to the visceral intensity of new feature, All of Us Strangers, starring Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal
Words Cliff Joannou
There’s a scene in Andrew Haigh’s new film All of Us Strangers that felt a bit like watching my own life in flashback. It takes place in the Whitgift Centre in 1980s Croydon, south London, where key parts of the film were shot. (Also included is Haigh’s actual childhood home in nearby Sanderstead, where he lived until around the age of nine, before his parents divorced and he moved away.) The scene in question lasts only a few seconds as a young boy (Adam) crosses the sombre shopping mall, but it was enough to transport me back to my own experience as a young kid growing up in the same London borough, a few years after Haigh’s time there.
In the 80s and 90s, Croydon felt like an incredibly oppressive place to grow up in. Head down there today, and you’ll find that the shopping centre hasn’t changed much, save that it’s largely lined with discount stores rather than the popular high-street names that once filled it. Meanwhile, the sense of alienation that comes with being a young person in this incongruous suburb tacked onto the southwest of sprawling megacity London feels hauntingly familiar.
“It’s those English suburbs, they’re very, very conservative. They always were,” Haigh says when we meet for our interview in Soho on an unseasonably warm autumn afternoon. “Back then, they were not a pleasant place for someone that’s different to grow up.”
In All of Us Strangers, young Adam is beginning to realise that his sexuality is setting him apart from the comforting familiarity of his beloved parents’ world. Sadly, this is not an experience unique to the 80s, but one that resonates with LGBTQ+ people even now.
The grown-up, contemporary-era version of Adam is played by Andrew Scott (Fleabag), who plays a lonely gay man that is struggling to let go of the past in order to find happiness and move forward. One day, Adam meets the younger and far more outwardly free Harry — exceptionally played by Paul Mescal — who lives in the same apartment block. They begin an intoxicating affair that at last allows Adam a sense of connection and freedom that he has always denied himself.
You’ll likely know Haigh’s work from his 2011 breakout romantic drama Weekend, starring Chris New and Tom Cullen, which resonated with audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. Its frank depiction of an overnight affair
