Deepanjana Pal

It’s really the story of what happens to the kid from The Sixth Sense when he grows up. Adam, a writer in London, wanders back to his childhood home to find his parents, who died in a car crash decades ago. He’s grown up, they’re the same age as they were when they were killed. Everyone knows this is surreal and beyond reality. Around the same time, Adam’s neighbour Harry knocks on his door. The two of them are effectively the only residents in an apartment complex. Adam politely rebuffs the clearly-drunk Harry, but there is a bit of a crackle between them. They inch closer to one another, from waving from windows to Adam finally letting Harry in.

Parallel to Adam and Harry’s electric romance is Adam’s reunion with his parents. The first time he returns, they’re both there. The second time, it’s just his mother and he comes out to her. It goes awkwardly. The third time, it’s just his father and it’s sweet. The fourth time, it’s Christmas and the three of them are together in a tender but eerie re-enactment of their last Christmas together, before his parents had the car crash.

Meanwhile reality with Harry keeps slipping through. The romance is unabashedly gay (at one point, Adam says he prefers the word to queer. He’s unsure about queer, it still feels like too much of an abuse. What a lovely way to tell you the character’s age without actually saying anything by way of years or dates). The sex is graphic and the intimacy is almost palpable — a telling and wonderful contrast to Red, White and Blue, which was sweet and charming, but very very straight.

Adam screams for his parents in his sleep, and Harry comforts him. When he’s most settled in his childhood home, in bed with his parents, he turns around to nuzzle with Harry (his parents have disappeared). At one point, he decides he’s going to introduce Harry to his parents. It’s a fantastic scene, rife with unease as Harry watches Adam with growing discomfort. They’re in front of a dark house that Adam is convinced has his parents inside. No one answers the door, no one responds to his banging. Then, briefly, Harry sees a blurry set of figures appear in the darkness inside. Not surprisingly, he freaks out.

Ultimately, it’s a film about feeling isolated and bottling up grief and pain. Harry’s anguish when he realises no one noticed he had died — Adam finds his dead body and his ghost — is heartbreaking. Adam’s response to meeting his parents and effectively realising he has to deal with his past trauma before he can move on, is to write. To turn reality into fiction. Because what we deem real or realistic is just not big enough to contain what is actually reality, emotions and all.

Fantastic performances from the cast, particularly Andrew Scott, and beautifully written script (by director Andrew Haigh, who shot the film in his actual childhood home. Positively unsettling).