Ok, here’s the twist ending of All of Us Strangers fully explained by the director

If you’re reading this article you’ve most likely just been completely and utterly emotionally destroyed by Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott’s new – simultaneously very sexy and very sad – film: All of Us Strangers. Seriously, what was the director Andrew Haigh actually trying to do to everybody? This was an assault on the soul.

But once you’ve picked your jaw off the floor and stopped sobbing for two seconds, you might find yourself with questions. Principally, what the hell did that huge twist ending actually mean? What’s real and what’s not? And are Harry and Adam OK? So, here’s a proper explanation. Spoilers ahead (obviously):

Right, so what does the ending of All of Strangers actually mean?

Credit: Searchlight Pictures

So, as we know, in All of Us Strangers Andrew Scott plays a gay scriptwriter called Adam who lives almost alone in a Ballardian high-rise building in London. His parents died in a car crash when he was 12 and as he struggles to write his new novel he returns to his family house in Croydon to find his parents somehow alive in the house – but stuck in the 1980s.

At the same time as this, one night a man called Harry who lives in Adam’s building knocks on the door of Adam’s flat and asks to come in. They start sleeping together, going on nights out together and fall deeply in love. Adam finally opens up about losing his parents and feeling lonely and re-explores his sexuality with Harry and – eventually – invites him to visit his parent’s house in Croydon.

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When Harry goes with Adam to see his parents, they can’t get in the house. And when Adam goes back alone later, his parents tell him he shouldn’t visit anymore. They stress he needs to get on with his own life and his mum points out her should take care of Harry because he has a “sadness” in his face.

Eventually, when Adam gets back to London, he goes to Harry’s apartment to find him. He’s never been to Harry’s flat on the sixth floor before and when he opens the door he’s greeted by an unpleasant small and finds Harry dead – clutching the same bottle of Japanese whiskey he was drinking the night he knocked on Adam’s door and he told him he couldn’t come inside.

Basically – and here’s the plot twist – Harry died the night he and Adam first spoke and everything that’s happened since between them has happened in Adam’s imagination. Their relationship, and everything that went with it, never actually happened.  It’s unclear whether Adam has been having a mental breakdown, has been disassociating from reality, or has simply found a coping mechanism for the trauma he’s experienced from losing both of his parents as a child.

Credit: Searchlight pictures

Harry then reappears, wearing the same pink jumper he wore the night he first spoke to Adam. “I was so lonely that night,” he tells him and the pair go back to Adam’s flat together. Adam wants to continue living in his fantasy world. He’s said goodbye to his parents, again. But he won’t let go of Harry.

We don’t know if Harry is stuck in purgatory, we’re watching Adam’s delusions or if Adam is actually dead too and has been since the start of the film. But, as Adam and Harry cuddle, a light starts to shine between them, which gets brighter until they fade into blackness and stars shine next to them.

And what exactly has the director said about the All of Us Strangers ending?

Credit: Searchlight Pictures

Speaking to Evan Ross Katz about the ending of All of Us Strangers, director Andrew Haig said: “I kind of go back and forth with all of that. I certainly knew that I wanted this film to feel like when you wake up from a dream and you think you understood it but you’re not sure if you did, and you find that the more that you pick at the dream, the more it raises new questions.

“And on the logical front, your sense of the film is correct, but everyone has different interpretations. People have come to me and said, ‘Is Adam dead all along?’ and ‘Is this purgatory’ and ‘Is any of it real?’ I mean, it’s a film, so none of it’s actually real, but it’s all the manifestation of a feeling, so if people see different things in that, they should. And I’m aware that some people will want a much happier ending and I’m aware of the things that people instinctively want — including myself.”

Related stories recommended by this writer:

• Here’s what Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott said about THOSE All of Us Strangers sex scenes

• Right, was Barry Keoghan wearing a prosthetic in THAT Saltburn final scene

• Okay, this is why everyone’s accusing Jacob Elordi of ‘queerbaiting’ right now

Featured image credit via Searchlight Pictures