Paul Mescal must be stopped
Friday, December 29, 2023 at 6:00PM 
Something must be done about that Irish menace known as Paul Mescal. He's out there ruining perfectly great songs, attaching such emotional devastation to them one can't help but start tearing up when listening to them. It's akin to a cinema-induced Pavlovian response, and it's making me feel like an insane crybaby. Last year, it was "Under Pressure," forever bound to Aftersun. This year, it's "The Power of Love" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the ending to All of Us Strangers. Twisting the horror out of Taichi Yamada's ghost story, Andrew Haigh re-imagined the book's conclusion as a melancholic gut punch, romance played for earnestness rather than betrayal.
It's probably the picture's most divisive element, but it works partly because of Mescal and how fleshed out his depressed stranger grows into being, narrative circumstances notwithstanding. I won't go further because everyone deserves to discover those surprises by themselves. However, I want to pose a couple of questions. First, has any film forever changed the meaning and effect of a song? Second, what did you think about the All of Us Strangers final goodbye?
Aftersun, All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh, LGBTQ+, Music, Paul Mescal, Soundtrack
Reader Comments (10)
The opening sequence of Apocalypse Now featuring a montage of images from Captain Willard’s belongings in a cheap hotel room, to the whirl of a ceiling fan assuming the rhythmic roar of helicopter blades, to the explosion of napalm in a serene forest, gave a new depth to Jim Morrison’s plaintive vocal from The End. The song has never been the same for me again.
Knew the answer before you finished asking it, and it will be common, but it's common because it is so true...
"Hip To Be Square" by AMERICAN PSYCHO
(A closs second (in ranking what comes to mind) would be "Don't Stop Me Now' by SHAUN OF THE DEAD)
This man... ❤️❤️❤️🔥🔥🔥
Mescal for supporting actor for "All of Us Strangers" alongside Bell!
Right now!
About the question, the use of the song "Singin' in the Rain" in "A Clockwork Orange".
Terrifying!
I'm Mescal-saturated. He should have kept quiet during the strike.
"I will wait for you" in Futurama
I have a quite different situation with “Willow’s Song” from The Wicker Man, which I always knew as “How do” by Sneaker Pimps until recently when I finally watched the 1973 film and was like “why is this naked lady singing a 90’s electro song?” complete with shame for my ignorance and amusement to discover it was an original and beautiful song from a cult classic horror movie.
I still haven't made up my mind whether the ending works. I actually wondered early on if that was where the film was going, but didn't anticipate how it would...soften the blow, including through this song! Emotionally, in the moment, it's devastatingly powerful. But I guess it's hard to know what the takeaway is. Is Scott's character going to be ok? Will he be able to open himself up now, or has he just found something else he can't let go?
There's a hopeful interpretation possible, but also a much darker one. Maybe that means the ending does work. But I don't know. I still love the film, though.
Lynn Lee -- I think part of why I liked it was that I had the book's dubious conclusion in my mind.
SPOILERS
In the book, Mescal's character is revealed to be fully conscious of their dead state. Indeed, the relationship with the lead was motivated by vengeance, wanting to suck the life force out of him and drag the man into death. In part because the ghost blames him for their death, for that final rejection that drove them to suicide. There's little to no compassion for the spirit, as it fades with cruel words and blood seeping from their chest. The novel's end is the writer moving out, coming back to normality, and moving on from these experiences with the beyond.
Playing the reveal for sincerity and empathy toward the dead felt radical, a repudiation of the novel's suspicious airs and vaguely mean streak. It's the transformation of horror into weepie. I get why it doesn't work for people, but the authorial intent behind Haigh's choice moved me in the end. It felt good not to have the central romantic relationship be revealed as a hollow ploy. There's such earnestness in ALL OF US STRANGERS. And if Scott's character is letting himself be stuck to this beyond, then I can't hate it too much. It's very DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY - the 1930s morbid and beautifully suicidal movie, not its misbegotten 90s remake.
SPOILERS
I had a different view of All of Us Strangers. I thought Adam was dead when the film began. The empty apartment building with its dark facade felt like a mausoleum. The bleak halls Adam exits during the fire drill only reinforced the emptiness of the space. I was convinced that Adam was in purgatory struggling to accept death. Of course, Harry faces the same problem.
The last sequence where Adam discovers Harry’s corpse and then turns to Harry’s physical manifestation in the next room signals Adam’s acceptance of the situation. That final heartbreaking image of the two men in a fetal knot of love and comfort acknowledged, for me, their end of struggle with the memory of life and moving forward to eternal peace.