Redux: Richard DeDomenici’s version of the Croydon-based film had better sunsets
KEN TOWL was at a movie’s world premiere on Saturday, staged in Croydon (just off Surrey Street, as it happens), of a film shot in Croydon, of a film set in Croydon.
His verdict? It’s a bit of a split opinion…
I am watching a film that was shot in Croydon and is set in Croydon. The critically acclaimed All Of Us Strangers, written and directed by Andrew Haigh, who grew up in Croydon, starring Andrew Scott, who didn’t, was one of the stand-out British cinema releases of 2023. This isn’t it. This is All of Us Strangers: Redux, the brainchild of Richard DeDomenici.
Earlier this year, DeDomenici advertised for “participants to help make a quick low-budget remake of scenes from the recent Croydon-based movie All of Us Strangers, in the original location where it was filmed”.
He wasn’t looking for professional actors. No experience was necessary “although it might help if you can cry on demand. And if you look a bit like Andrew Scott, Claire Foy and/or Jamie Bell, then all the better”.
Director’s cut: Richard DeDomenici
Filming took place over one weekend in October, and all participants were invited to the All Of Us Strangers: Redux premiere and wrap party, staged as part of the Croydonites arts festival. And so I was watching a film about Croydon, shot in Croydon…
DeDomenici has form. His first attempt at low-budget, rip-off/homage, The DeDomenici Supremacy, was a one-minute shot-for-shot remake of a section of The Bourne Supremacy. I particularly like his Dawn of the Dead: Redux, in which George A Romero’s brutal zombie satire on commercialism is brutally satirised.
Of course, the great risk of the redux project is that it might serve to show just how good the original film was and, in this case, what a great actor Andrew Scott is. But that would be missing the point. You don’t come to a redux premiere to evaluate the recreation against the original, but rather to gain new insight, to see the story through a different filter.
Back in 1989, Michael Mann wrote and directed a TV pilot called LA Takedown which did not become a series but sank into obscurity. Six years later, Mann, by now established as a Hollywood giant, with more money behind him and more talent at his disposal, remade LA Takedown with Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Val Kilmer, except that this time he called it Heat. You don’t watch LA Takedown now to judge its merits against those of Heat, you watch it because it is fascinating to see what a familiar story looks like without all of the advantages of Hollywood talent and finance, and to see how a less slick and possibly more real production makes you feel.
So how did All Of Us Strangers: Redux make me feel? First of all, relief.
DeDomenici announced that he had recreated only the exterior Croydon shots, where he was able to emulate the original film. So the redux was a mere eight minutes long.
Then, as the long, lingering scenes of a pensive Andrew Scott riding the East Grinstead train on the upper half of the spilt screen played out above the long, lingering scenes of a pensive Andrew McPherson on the lower half, I was captivated.
Split screen: this may have been the world’s first world premiere staged off Surrey Street
When our two Andrews appeared to alight at Sanderstead and spend time (in Scott’s case smouldering, in Macpherson’s, just looking), the familiarity of it all was jolting.
I mean, it had been the first time around.
I watched All Of Us Strangers in the cinema last year and still remember the frisson I felt when the Whitgift Centre appeared in all its mundane glory. This is doubled in the redux, in which, with all due deference to Macpherson and the rest of the cast, the location becomes the lead protagonist.
They say of the films of Michael Mann that the recurring star is Los Angeles. Those films tend to open with sweeping shots of the LA skyline and then dwell for scene after scene in the concrete, glass and steel of the city. Here, watching the trees and shops and residential suburbia of Sanderstead and the concrete, glass and steel of the Whitgift, Croydon itself came to the fore.
It is all about the frisson. I spoke to DeDomenici, who turns out to be an affable and remarkably frank and (therefore?) funny man bereft of all arty pretension.
Why make these redux versions in the first place? DeDomenici described a Damascene conversion. He didn’t describe it that way. He isn’t pretentious. What he actually described was finding himself a few years ago in the location where in 1987, Stanley Kubrick had filmed battle scenes for Full Metal Jacket. That location was Beckton, near the Isle of Dogs, rather than Hue in Vietnam. DeDomenici felt a frisson of recognition and was inspired to recreate films in their original locations.
He is a funny guy, though. And there is a lot of humour to be gained from his work. The juxtaposition of the familiar-but-different with the stark disparity in budget between the two productions inevitably provokes laughter. There is one scene, for example, when Andrew Scott’s character and his parents ride the escalator in the Whitgift and glide smoothly to the upper floor framed by the very real glass ceiling of the Whitgift.
In the redux, the entire cast of three, with varying degrees of success, appear to be trying to look like they are gliding, when in fact they are walking, framed by a metaphorical ceiling, all imposed by financial constraints. Without the budget to get the Whitgift’s broken-down escalator fixed, DeDomenici confirmed that the security guard had allowed them to move the out-of-order sign for the duration of the filming (which appeared to be all of about 30 seconds).
The redux also pointed up a lot of the tropes of Hollywood film-making, all the (expensive) tricks employed to create the shiny final product, all laid bare by their absence. In a sort of DVD extra, we got a second viewing with director voiceover, taking us through some of the production problems as we saw them unfold in front of us and compared them with the Haigh version (which, it ought to be noted, hardly had the benefit of a big budget in the first place).
Seeing double: Andrew Scott Scott smouldering, Andrew Macpherson… looking
There were issues with lighting and special effects that could be resolved with a Hollywood budget, but not without. On the other hand, there were a lot of tricks you could play with a mobile phone and some gaffer tape that seemed to go a long way, and DeDomenici had to agree that he got luckier than Haigh with the sunset in the lingering playground and park scenes.
With god on his side, his redux managed to look, albeit briefly, better than the original.
This performance represents yet another success for Croydonites, whose programme of diverse arts events has maintained a consistently high standard. After a successful opening weekend fringe, the festival itself is going from strength to strength. If these people had been in charge of curating last year’s Borough of Culture, there was a decent chance it might have been a success. Croydon is lucky to have them, and Croydon really is the star of the DeDomenici’s film.
If you want to see it – and why wouldn’t you? – you won’t, unfortunately, find it on YouTube.
Another barrier that the impecunious filmmaker has to contend with is copyright.
In his struggle to be authentic, DeDomenici soundtracked his final scene with Patsy Cline’s If I Could See The World (Through The Eyes of a Child), because that is what Haigh used in his original. Unfortunately, YouTube rejected the upload for reasons of copyright. DeDomenici says he will try to upload it to Vimeo. Until then, here’s a “sneak preview” from his Insta account.
Meanwhile the Croydonites programme continues to delight up to November 24. Check out the programme of up-coming shows here: https://www.croydonites.com/whats-on
Read more: Frankie Goes To Croydon – a walking show with a big reveal
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