All Of Us Strangers follows the story of a lonely man working as a screenplay writer who has an encounter with a mysterious man in his near empty tower. Soon, he also is pulled closer to his childhood home wherein both his long-dead parents are living and look the same age as they did 30 years ago. The story is perhaps the saddest and most heartbreaking tale that I have witnessed on celluloid in recent times. It is poetic, cosmic while being gut-wrenching in so many ways that it would potentially smash your heart in a million pieces. The screenplay standing at a little above a 100 minutes is taut and trippy while being emotional in many ways that slowly accentuates the feeling of sorrow, pain and loneliness over the course of the narrative. As a result, you will slowly find yourself invested in the drama while being completely shattered by the end of it. There are spoilers ahead! 

The drama opens with the introduction of the protagonist who is a recluse and a loner, an aspect reaffirmed by the fact that a fire alarm had only him enter the lobby of the tower which was nearly empty(signified by the lights turned off). Soon, he encounters another person who wishes to enter his apartment to spend quality time with him, something that the protagonist rebuffs. This, while he is drawn nearer to his childhood home wherein he meets his parents who were dead long away. Amidst the parallel tales, you do get to know that the protagonist is a screenplay writer along with being a homosexual, something that he explores with the mysterious man that he met at the beginning of the drama. Yet, there is a firm thread of pain and sorrow that connects the two worlds together. 

How often have we witnessed that a trauma from our past, particularly with the loss of our dear ones has stayed within us without us being cured of it completely. As a result, this pain is often buried within layers and layers of our psyche while consistently being accumulated until there is a medium to get it out. And if that is not the case then it can result in hallucinations, something that is tackled in the drama here. The trippy psyche of the protagonist urges him to transcend in his past while reflecting on all the unsaid conversations that he may have had with his parents including the closeness with his mother or his affection with his father. The same is also reflective in his behavior with the mysterious man whom he thinks does impart a maternal care towards him, something that reminds him of his mother. 

The only real cure of this pain is to accept the reality and try and move on, something which is depicted in the most heartbreaking scene at a cafe in the film wherein the parents of the protagonist ask him to move on in life. Meanwhile, the twist in the tale occurs wherein the protagonist discovers the body of his mysterious lover who had died on the same night that they had met first. There was a little hint provided of the same wherein the man sees the ghost of the protagonist’s parents before asking him to return. What then follows is a cosmic representation of the protagonist’s love for the mysterious man, almost in a manner of not allowing him to be lost in oblivion, much unlike what happened to his parents. And while the end is open to interpretation my little interpretation is that the entire drama that was showcased was reflective of his life while he himself may have been on his death-bed owing to depression. The entire life of his may have flashed before his eyes as he died a man recluse and lonely with the only real bit being his encounter with the mysterious man that he imagined to be an affair of sorts. The screenplay is heartbreaking and would shatter you to a million pieces.