New York is a sort of homecoming for British writer-director Andrew Haigh, who 12 years ago brought “Weekend” to NewFest, the city's annual LGBTQ+ film festival.
His return to New York this fall seemed almost inevitable then, given the buzz surrounding his latest film, “All of Us Strangers.” The highly-anticipated feature, his first in about six years, is arguably his most personal yet.
Adapted from “Strangers,” written by Japanese novelist Taichi Yamada and released in 1987, Haigh injects the story with gay romance and sets significant portions of the film at the childhood home he hadn't been back to in four decades.
Haigh's "Strangers" is set in contemporary London and follows screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott of "Fleabag") as he explores the early stages of relationship with Harry (Paul Mescal of "Normal People") while revisiting the parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) he lost in a car crash 30 years ago.
"As Adam is going on this journey into the past, I knew that I wanted to do the same thing with my own life and my own past," Haigh says. "What I wanted it to be was to be about me, make it quite specific at time, for example, filing at my old house and some of those conversations are certainly conversations I may have had in my life."
One particular night inside his looming, nearly empty apartment building, Adam's late-night encounter with Harry brings an awakening of sorts to the struggling screenwriter. Their romance is only interrupted by the escapes Adam takes to the London suburbs where he speaks to the parents he lost at age 12.
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The quiet moments of a blossoming romance between the men, almost exclusively set in Adam's apartment, run parallel to some of the standout moments in the film that brought Haigh to New York more than a decade ago. In "Weekend," Russell and Glen, two men living in England, spark an affair following a one-night stand.
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"Weekend" and "Strangers," although not directly linked in story, find themselves in conversation with one another through the themes Haigh is interested in exploring, and in his words, can't "escape from."
"This obviously is working in a different dimension let's say than 'Weekend.' Those ideas of trying to connect and trying to understand what love means and how it… ya know familiar love and romantic love, are still things I've always been interested in. It's an expansion I would say of 'Weekend,' but not a conscious expansion," Haigh says.
Fans of Scott's are in store for what critics have called a career-best performance. For Haigh, there wasn't anyone else in mind to fill Adam's shoes.
"I never had any doubt that he'd be able to do that. He's got a sort of strength, he's got a real vulnerability, and you need that in the character," Haigh says. "After my first conversation with him, I was like 'yeah this is right.' Then it's about working out who makes sense for his parents."
New York audiences can catch "All of Us Strangers" at New York Film Festival and NewFest this month before the film opens in theaters nationwide this December.
