We Are All Strangers (2026) Berlin Film Review

In We Are All Strangers, a life-changing moment sees a group of four people of different generations form a family, but the dramatic results are uninspiring.

Whilst he is wholly right in his observations, the issues come from how blatantly and clumsily he expresses them.

In contemporary Singapore, 21-year-old Junyang (Koh Jia Ler, Ilo Ilo, Wet Season) lives at home with his father Bonn Kiat (Andi Lim, The Return of the Condor Heroes). He is a classically lazy youngster, not yet ready to step into adult working life and with his attention fully focussed on his 18-year-old girlfriend Lydia (Regene Lim, My Guardian Angles). Her homelife is more structured, with her mother dictating everything she does. Initially, Chen sets these characters up nicely, building solid foundations for what’s to come. The first turning point in We Are All Strangers is Lydia’s accidental pregnancy, which forces both of the youngsters to grow up quicker than they would have liked.

After Boon marries Bee Hwa (Yeo Yann Yann, Ilo Ilo, Wet Season), a woman who works at the same food market as him, the central quartet of the film settle into their new existence, living together in a cramped flat. Throughout, Hoping Chen’s (Bel Ami, The Breaking Ice) editing is erratic, never giving the film a proper rhythm, and despite initial promise, Chen is unable to get a handle on all of these colliding characters and their undulating emotions. Random events come and go, with scenes hopping from one another with often very little cohesion. Even worse are the emotions on show in We Are All Strangers, which come off as forced. None of this is helped by the fact that Chen’s film is far too long for what is essentially quite a predictable, meek story.

Yeo Yann Yann excels in what is the most interesting character of We Are All Strangers. An immigrant from China, she still feels unaccepted by Singaporean society, despite her many years of residence there. There are some interesting notes on this subject dotted throughout the film, such as the class divides of Singapore, the unapproved medication industry booming online, or the heavy influence of social media, but all of them are too fleeting to really take root. In contrast to Bee Hwa, the characters of Junyang, Boon Kiat, and Lydia barely register as real people. In particular, the latter is essentially non-existent after the film’s opening stages.

It’s a shame, because there are hints of what could have been. DOP Teoh Gay Hian (Mimpi Moon) captures the city of Singapore well with textured shots that feel alive. With striking visual choices and lighting, he also strengthens  some of the film’s more emotional moments. At one point in We Are All Strangers, Boon Kiat watches cars passing by, noting that there are people in each going about their lives, never converging. He is, like Chen, not wrong, but, like Chen, he is heavy-handed  in his observations. The end result is a film that is as clumsy as it is soppy.

We Are All Strangers (Wo Men Bu Shi Mo Sheng Ren) premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 16-21, 2026. Read our Berlin Film Festival reviews and our list of 20 films to watch at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival!