Is the ending of All of Us Strangers brilliant or infuriating?

Andrew Haigh’s darkish love story All of Us Strangers arrived to Hulu on Feb. 22, after two quiet months of build up phrase of mouth in theaters. Debuting simply earlier than Christmas and competing with lots of extra bombastic releases, it initially reached a small viewers — but it surely was evident that it made an impression, as critics and viewers spun out prolonged on-line analyses and discussions of its memorable, divisive ending.

Here at Polygon, we’re united in admiring the movie, however we disagree about the impression of that ending — whether or not it’s vital, truthful to the characters, constructive to the movie, you title it. And when we now have robust disagreements on Polygon’s leisure group, we ship the case to Polygon Court, as we did once we debated the alternate ending of James Cameron’s Titanic, the most essential half of the Fast and Furious franchise, the drawback of Spider in Avatar: The Way of Water, and the tune reduce from The Muppet Christmas Carol, amongst different knotty popular culture circumstances.

In this case, we now have divergent opinions on what the finish of All of Us Strangers accomplishes. Polygon Court is now in session.

[Ed. note: End spoilers ahead for All of Us Strangers.]

The ending of All of Us Strangers

Image: Searchlight Pictures/Everett Collection

All of Us Strangers is a quiet love story a few lonely, remoted screenwriter, Adam (Andrew Scott), who returns to his childhood residence whereas engaged on a script, and finds his mother and father there, despite the fact that they died when he was a baby. Over the course of the film, he will get some much-needed closure with these ghosts, however in addition they gently inform him that his relationship with them is holding him again, and so they depart him behind in a tearful scene.

At the similar time all this is happening, Adam meets a neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal), seemingly the solely different particular person already residing in his high-rise condo constructing. Harry reveals up at Adam’s door drunk one night time, searching for firm. Adam, shy and awkward, shuts him out. Later, although, they reconnect, and launch an initially tentative, then passionate relationship. Adam ultimately tries to introduce Harry to his ghost-parents, which fits poorly, and Harry flees. When Adam seeks him out, visiting Harry’s condo for the first time, he finds that Harry is lifeless — and has been lifeless since the night time of that first assembly, when Adam rebuffed him, and Harry returned to his personal mattress and overdosed.

In the film’s remaining sequence, Adam accepts his lover as a ghost, comforts him, and curls up in mattress with him. The digital camera slowly retreats, leaving them in darkness.

Opening statements: The energy of love

Image: Searchlight Pictures/Everett Collection

Tasha: Pete, the ending of All of Us Strangers had a robust emotional impact on me. I discovered it beautiful — the performances, the emotional tenor they bring about to Adam and Harry’s relationship, the approach the sequence pays off the themes which have been constructing all through the film, the use of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “The Power Of Love” each on the soundtrack and in the lyrics Adam quotes. I liked it! So I used to be shocked to search out out it was your least favourite half of the film. Sum it up for me: What was your response to it?

Pete: I discovered it bitter and disappointing. I completely liked the first 80-ish minutes of the film, gorgeously shot and acted story about the lingering energy of love and being liked. But the reveal at the finish about Harry’s destiny felt like an inexpensive narrative trick. It’s unnecessarily merciless, with out including a lot depth or impression to what was already an extremely highly effective story.

Presentation of proof: Is the ending of All of Us Strangers justified?

Image: Searchlight Pictures/Everett Collection

Tasha, the case for the ending: There’s lots to unpack there, however the half that surprises me most is the concept that Harry’s demise doesn’t add depth to the story. For me, the ending turns a reasonably easy, easy “let go of the past, embrace the future” love story into one thing way more thematically sophisticated, the place we now have to contemplate the variations between Adam’s relationship along with his mother and father and with Harry, and what every of them says about him.

If Adam’s relationship along with his ghost-parents was holding him again, are we meant to see his relationship along with his ghost-boyfriend in the similar approach? Is their embrace contradictory? Is it backsliding? Is it essentially totally different as a result of he’s supporting somebody who wants him, as a substitute of the reverse? Adam didn’t create Harry’s dependancy or despair, however does he bear any guilt or blame for what occurred to Harry? Or is he simply feeling the duty of taking care of somebody he loves?

How are we meant to really feel about this ending, and what it says about the film’s themes and Adam’s state of thoughts? I’ve been weighing all these items ever since I first noticed the film months in the past, and I assure that wouldn’t be true if it was only a easy story of somebody studying to maneuver previous his personal previous.

Pete, the case in opposition to: I feel these are all extremely fascinating questions, and at the finish of the day, what I’ve settled on is that this narrative alternative wouldn’t have felt so jarring for me if it had been established early on. Instead, as a really late twist to what you’ve seen, it comes throughout to me as too enamored with its personal cleverness and in the end merciless to Adam, sentencing him to a lifetime of distress and loneliness. (And as you famous, bringing the query of guilt and blame into the scenario.)

Yes, he “has” Harry in his life, however half of the pleasure of being in a romantic partnership is with the ability to share the love of your life with different folks you take care of — as Adam reveals by “taking” Harry out to a bar and to his mother and father’ home. The reveal tells us how empty their life collectively will truly be.

Tasha, the case for the ending: I don’t see it the similar approach in any respect! It doesn’t appear to be Adam has anybody in his life to introduce Harry to. The undeniable fact that they will exit to a bar and dance collectively proves that they aren’t restricted to hiding in non-public, and going out with Harry frees Adam from cloistered isolation. Maybe they aren’t destined for glowing dinner events or group holidays with a crowd of pals, however there wasn’t any of that in Adam’s life earlier than Harry got here alongside, both. At least with Harry, he has somebody.

I’m actually not arguing that All of Us Strangers’ ending is a cheerful one: At best possible, it’s bittersweet, and sure, fairly lonely. But inside that tragic-romance house, there’s a melancholy energy to the thought of discovering somebody you’re feeling so related to that you simply’re keen to surrender the world for them if want be — and somebody you like a lot that your romance transcends demise itself.

And I’d argue that there’s additionally a extremely vital energy in a film ending the place what the viewers feels about the protagonist’s scenario and what the protagonist feels about it are radically totally different from one another. I’m fascinated by the ending of one of my all-time favourite films, Brazil, or extra not too long ago, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In each circumstances, the viewers is left someplace between saddened and horrified in spite of the characters’ happiness. I see one thing related occurring on this ending, and I respect it as a tough however emotionally efficient factor to tug off.

Image: Searchlight Pictures/Everett Collection

Pete, the case in opposition to: For me, half of the energy of the film is the undeniable fact that the questions you raised nonetheless linger meaningfully regardless of my distaste for the ending. It is contradictory, which is fascinating, and I feel the film frames Adam and Harry’s embrace as consolation, even when to me it’s a very chilly one. I’ll disagree with you on one major level: I feel the film would have been simply as highly effective for me had it solely been about Adam transferring on from his mother and father’ demise and transferring ahead with Harry.

For me, that story nonetheless had a lot to say about the enduring energy of love (one thing Haigh has mentioned he wished to speak with the movie) and its skill to cross unfathomable, even metaphysical boundaries. Claire Foy and Jamie Bell’s uncontainable curiosity about their son’s life and pursuits hit me exhausting, and I felt his relationship with Harry was a beautiful counterbalance as a result of of the generational gaps (large and small) all through the film, and the alternative it introduced for him to lastly be completely satisfied.

Tasha, the case for the ending: But then how would Harry have interacted with that storyline in any respect? Would the narrative focus simply been a easy alternative between the residing and the lifeless, the previous and the current?

You mentioned you’ll have most well-liked to know that Harry was lifeless earlier in the film, however I don’t suppose that might have labored narratively. And the motive is what you simply famous about Adam’s mother and father. I don’t suppose we may have processed Harry’s demise or determined what to do with it till Adam’s arc along with his mother and father was resolved. Their curiosity about Adam’s life and about their very own deaths, their emotions about their ongoing relationship with Adam and what he wants with the intention to transfer ahead — these are all priming us to know how ghosts work on this world, and what a relationship with one can be like. (The particulars are fairly distinctive!)

Yes, I agree it performs as a “gotcha” type of twist — not a gleeful one, however actually a “You didn’t see this coming.” (I’ve thought lots about whether or not there’s an argument to be made that All of Us Strangers is a stealth sequel to The Sixth Sense, which incorporates a related type of ending twist, although in that world, the lifeless don’t know they’re lifeless.)

But I additionally suppose it wanted to be the very last thing that occurs in the film, as a result of till Adam’s wrapped his arc along with his mother and father, he’s nonetheless a person in transition. He has to make it by way of that have with the intention to determine learn how to strategy Harry primarily based on all the pieces he’s discovered — and we the viewers want his relationships along with his mother and father and with Harry to be distinct from one another, associated and intertwined, however nonetheless not simply easy extensions of one another.

Pete, the case in opposition to: One factor I struggled with after ending the movie was concern that my distaste got here out of a dislike of one thing dangerous taking place to a personality I appreciated. But then I watched Hirokazu Kore-eda’s new movie Monster, a film I really like the place a lot of dangerous issues occur to characters I like (and that features some intelligent twists!). That helped reaffirm the place I used to be coming from right here, regardless of how jumbled my emotions about All of Us Strangers are.

And my emotions proceed to be jumbled as we speak about it — I discover myself agreeing with lots of what you’re saying, and the problem the film would have had narratively if it hadn’t positioned Harry’s demise as a twist. I do suppose it’s attainable, and in my model, slightly than a alternative between the residing or the lifeless, it might be the residing and the lifeless — accepting each the permanence and penalties of demise, in addition to the alternative of life in the new world he has for himself. As constructed, he does select between the residing and the lifeless, and the alternative he makes is “the dead.” But I’ll push that hypothetical rewrite onto Andrew Haigh as a substitute, and depart that as much as him to determine.

Ultimately what I’m grateful for is that this isn’t one of these films the place I’m left utterly bewildered by different folks’s responses to it. I feel there are lots of wonderful issues about All of Us Strangers, and I’m extremely glad that individuals are responding to it so positively, even when I didn’t all the approach by way of.

Image: Searchlight Pictures/Everett Collection

Tasha, the case for the ending: And I actually perceive your objections! The factor I’m left questioning the most about the film is the narrative perversity of Adam having his dependence on two ghosts damaged in opposition to his will, for his personal good — after which turning round and emotionally committing to a 3rd one.

That, and yet another factor that does actually give me pause: the approach this film sadly falls into the “bury your gays” trope. It’s a longstanding, well-noted situation that queer characters disproportionately undergo tragic symbolic endings, and it’s uncommon to see a queer couple get an uncompromised completely satisfied ending. I’m in favor of this particular film ending, however I’m not totally comfy with how the film suits into the cliché.

Looking into the supply materials right here — the film is a unfastened adaptation of Taichi Yamada’s 1987 Japanese novel Strangers — this ending could be very a lot Haigh’s radical revision of a narrative involving a straight relationship, and a person stricken by predatory ghosts. The Harry equal, a lady named Kei, even reads as vengeful and offended about the Adam equal refusing her early in the story — a rejection that pushed her to take her personal life by repeatedly stabbing herself. There’s no query that the Adam character wants to flee her earlier than she kills him. It’s a remarkably totally different story throughout, which implies this model of the story — and the approach it falls into that irritating previous trope — is totally Haigh’s imaginative and prescient. Did that side trouble you in any respect?

Pete, the case in opposition to: That’s very fascinating, and I’m glad you introduced that into the dialog. I used to be interested in the supply materials, however hadn’t taken the step to look nearer into it but.

And sure, I’d be mendacity if I mentioned the litany of tales about homosexual love that finish in tragedy didn’t play a task right here. But I used to be much less bothered by related selections in different 2023 queer movies (examples redacted because of spoilers), so I really feel assured saying it’s not simply that.

Closing statements: What comes from darkness

Image: Searchlight Pictures/Everett Collection

Tasha, the case for the ending: Ultimately, to me, the ending of All of Us Strangers is darkish, unhappy, and unusual, however none of these issues are knocks in opposition to it — they arrive throughout as daring to me, and considerate. I believe Haigh has clear solutions in thoughts for the questions we’ve posed right here, however he’s made it clear along with his cautious solutions in interviews that he doesn’t wish to give them away. He desires folks to contemplate them for themselves, and are available away from the movie moved, engaged, and primed for a dialogue. In that spirit, this ending completely labored for me.

Pete, the case in opposition to: I nonetheless have lots of love for All of Us Strangers, and I’m really glad that an exquisite, aching queer love story that has thorny components and takes on tough subjects has been capable of join with audiences in such a powerful approach. I don’t have an ideal image of what this film appears like with out the late twist, however as at present constructed, the ending simply didn’t land for me, and left a bitter style in my mouth after what was in any other case a beautiful expertise. And you understand what? I’m okay with that.