So what has Andrew Haigh said about the ending of “All of Us Strangers,” and does he think it’s sad or dark? No, actually — he thinks the ending of the film shows that Adam has experienced growth now that he’s opened himself up to connection and love, and that the character can potentially move forward with his life.
In an interview with Time Magazine where Haigh discussed the movie — including the fact that he used his own childhood home as a stand-in for Adam’s, centering it as a key location in the film — and interviewer Matthew Jacobs asked the director if the ending can be viewing as a statement that life as a queer man is one of isolation and loneliness. Haigh disagreed, saying that’s not his intention at all. “There is hope in the fact that he has understood that, basically, he is capable of being in love and being loved and being there for someone else that might need him in that moment,” Haigh said. “By the end of the film, to me, it is basically saying that what is important in life is love in whatever way you manage to find that, whether it’s in a relationship, whether it’s with your parents, whether it’s with a friend.”
While Haigh did say he could have concocted a more optimistic ending for the film, he just didn’t think that would work and that he prefers a “complicated” ending. “Now, look, there’s a version of this story where it ends in a much happier place, for sure,” he admitted. “I needed to bring it to a level beyond that. Just a nice, simplistic, happy ending doesn’t quite work for me with this.”
