Andrew Haigh

All of Us Strangers

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Adam with his father and mother

All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh’s first movie since the atypical Lean On Pete, sees him back in familiar Haigh territory – with a twist. “Familiar” means an intense, almost claustrophobic, relationship-focused drama, but the twist comes from the way Haigh tells his story. It’s a spooky, old-fashioned ghost story. Not, note, a haunted house story (though there is a haunted house in it). Nor is this a horror movie, though psychological horror lurks somewhere in the background. It’s a ghost story of MR James variety, a style of storytelling that’s having a bit of a moment in UK movies right now – see Joanna Hogg’s The Eternal Daughter for something on fairly … Read more

Lean On Pete

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The horse Lean On Pete with Charley

Lean On Pete isn’t at all like Andrew Haigh’s last film with the word “Pete” in the title. Greek Pete was a biographical mostly-documentary about the life of a London rent boy. It was adult in both senses of the word. Lean On Pete is YA, young adult, the coming-of-age tale of a lonely 15-year-old lad. No sex, no sign of any metropolis, no Brits. Haigh has set out to transform himself entirely as a film-maker and has succeeded entirely. If the whole thing even gets a bit aw shucks now and again, that’s probably also deliberate. His admirably direct approach remains the same, however, as it has been in all his films … Read more

Greek Pete

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Peter Pittaros, aka Greek Pete, in close-up

Andrew Haigh’s debut feature Greek Pete, a biographical “year in the life” of a London rentboy, takes the documentary and gives it a good pounding. Pete is an early-20s dark-haired, nice-looking guy who loves to talk. We first meet him as if we’re eavesdropping, from a distance, through a doorway. He’s on a sofa with a client chatting. The client’s face is fuzzed out. The two men pull relaxed poses as they make small talk about Pete’s background. Then Haigh’s camera cuts to “later that night”, now less the eavesdropper and more the Peeping Tom, as Pete gives the client a severe anal rogering. Cuts again to a neon-speckled club where Pete is … Read more

Looking

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Agustín and Patrick sit on a hillside

2016’s Looking is also known as Looking: The Movie, for reasons that are obvious if you were a fan of the TV show that suddenly got pulled just as everyone involved was gearing up for a third season. Looking: The Movie is HBO’s sop to the fans who bombarded the company with howling letters of complaint, and a neat way for showrunner Michael Lannan and creative sidekick/writer/director Andrew Haigh to tie off various loose ends. This they do. The original idea for the series was Queer as Folk meets Tales of the City – a look at gay/queer (though “gay” is the word most used here) life as it’s lived by people who … Read more