Rating: 3.5/5
Adam (Andrew Scott) leads a solitary life in his high-rise apartment in London. We catch him at his computer working on a script. One night, the fire alarm goes off, and he evacuates. No one else is on the street except him. Looking up at the building, he sees only two lights: his and a stranger’s.
When Adam goes back upstairs, he receives a knock on the door. There at the door is his neighbor, Harry (Paul Mescal). Harry flirts with Adam, asking to come in. Adam declines the offer and goes back to smoking weed.
As Adam works on his script, he looks through his childhood items: family photos, a tree ornament, and so on. He finds a picture of his childhood home.
Adam takes the photo to his hometown outside of London and finds the home. He walks past, seeing a child in the window. He goes into a field nearby and breathes in the air. When he opens his eyes, the sky has grown darker. Behind him, a man gestures for Adam to follow him. While initially it looks like cruising, we realize that this is Adam’s father and is taking Adam home to see his mother.
Adam’s mother and father died when he was a child.
The next time Adam sees Harry, they talk, and Adam takes a chance to invite Harry into his life.
The film explores how trauma locks parts of us into certain times in our lives. Some parts of us still believe we are the child who lost their parents and would do anything to show them who we’ve become.
Andrew Scott is on screen almost the entire movie, and he brings such emotional depth to his character. While some of it is in the script, much is Scott’s contribution. Please, please, please let him lead more things. He is a beautiful actor in every sense of the word.
Paul Mescal is also very good. He is the master of micro-expressions and camera perception. Normal People fans/trauma bonds know.
Both of them have great on-screen chemistry, and it’s delightful to watch them romantically fuck each other. If nothing else, that’s worth the price of admission.
The music is fucking incredible, but cloying and on-the-nose. Like most queer boys, I love the Pet Shop Boys. But having his mom sing “Always on My Mind” to him is…
The magic of Adam seeing his parents again never gets (or needs) an explanation. It reminds me of Petite Maman, but the concept strains a bit more in this story. As it switches between Harry and the parents, two different ideas are at play. When the movie tried to resolve the difference, it lost me.
This script is a personal one and one written during the quarantine. At points, you get the sense that Andrew Haigh is putting his traumas on the page — at other times, it feels like a period on an unfinished sentence.
Many people will connect to the movie. About 2/3 of the film had me hooked. I really like this movie. It does a lot very well. The trip to the end, however, is divisive and will affect people differently. For me, it was enough to keep me from loving it.