If two words could perfectly encapsulate viewers’ feelings as writer-director Andrew Haigh’s fifth feature film “All of Us Strangers” kickstarts, it would be ennui and melancholia. Screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott; “1917,” 2019) lives a painfully slow, rote, and virtually empty life in a mostly empty building—save for its only other resident, Harry (Paul Mescal; “Aftersun,” 2022), a chance encounter with whom his life turns into a whirlwind romance.

The ennui may fade away—save for residue—with the progress of the film’s runtime, but the melancholia remains and often manages to hit you like a ton of bricks when you least expect it from the narrative. Cinematographer Jamie D. Ramsay (“Living,” 2022), through his textured, jaw-droppingly gorgeous frames, makes some artistically inspired choices with reflections to paint a haunting, tragic picture of loneliness and its endless echoes that throw us into a feedback loop that both comfortable—and challenging—to get out of.

Haigh, who adapts from Taichi Yamada’s Japanese language novel “Ijintachi To No Natsu” (Eng. Title: “Strangers,” 1987), gives Scott’s protagonist a rich sense of history—this, however, doesn’t turn either the characters around him into one-dimensional caricatures. Played with splendid conviction by Claire Foy (“Women Talking,” 2022) and Jamie Bell (“Rocketman,” 2019), Adam’s parents are complemented by a stunningly penned and executed subplot that has the power to potentially throw you off simply because of the drastically different image system it sports. Foy and Bell are incredible, and their performances exude an aura that is simultaneously comforting, guilt-wracked, and resentful.

Towards the end of their arc in the final act, when the narrative finally unravels itself, is when the film, both a love story and an inversion of the coming-of-age tale, turns its own devastating meditation of love, longing, and loss into something more profound and lingering. Haigh’s narrative for “All of Us Strangers” may have begun with a lonely man longing for companionship bumping into the only other human being in an otherwise empty tower, prepping its audience up for a sweet, if sad and introspective romance. What we end up with, however, is so much more.

Touching on themes of queer acceptance, closure, and a deep-set melancholia that comes from a mixture of feeling misunderstood and alone, “All of Us Strangers” transcends genres to create a strikingly penned, vividly painted drama that looks, sounds, and feels as singular as such a story can let it. His masterful hold over the basis of Yamada’s source is only complemented by the kind of re-interpretation that only someone who hungers to explore what’s beyond the text can whip up.

Standing tall among the best films of 2023, “All of Us Strangers” sees writer-director Andrew Haigh—in only his fifth filmmaking effort—at his most accomplished so far. A surrealist journey through the mental recesses of a gay man desperate for some sort of familial closure, Haigh packs in a beautiful tragedy rife with themes that feel heretofore almost untapped in so many ways, but works perfectly with his film’s inversion of many genres—without feeling overstuffed. It will not be everyone’s cup of tea, but that doesn’t make the almost magical-realist spectrum this romance is set in any less of an absolute standout. Highly recommended.