A Single Man

A Single Man

There can't have been many people who held out hopes for fashion designer Tom Ford making much of his directorial debut. He certainly knows his way around clothing, but moviemaking is a whole different game.

What's most remarkable about A Single Man, then, is that it's such a complete, complex and engaging movie. If you're expecting Ford to bring the style of his clothing line to the film without lending it any substance, then think again. A Single Man boasts a wonderful cast, impressive depths - and it still looks good.

The decision to adapt a Christopher Isherwood novel as his debut certainly pays off, lending the material a heavyweight resonance that most first-time directors would lack. With the characters and narrative provided by someone as talented as Isherwood, it leaves Ford free to concentrate on the film's visual aspects. The end result is both smart and sexy.

It's impossible to discuss A Single Man without singling out Colin Firth's performance, however, and there seems little doubt that it marks a new career high for everyone's favorite Mr. Darcy. He's subtle, emotionally engaging, utterly believable... you'll have to remind yourself that this is the same actor who appeared in the lightweight fluff of Mamma Mia!.

Here Firth plays George Falconer, a gay college professor whose life has fallen apart following the sudden death of his long-term partner Jim (Matthew Goode). George still goes through the motions, but his life is grey and lifeless without Jim, a hollow echo of what it used to be.

So George decides - quite rationally - to commit suicide. We watch him during his last day, as he makes preparations for his own death, completes any unfinished business, and generally steels himself for the end to his suffering.

Except, of course, things never happen that smoothly. George still enjoys brief moments of pleasure in his life, often when he makes a connection with the people who surround him, and the world isn't going to let him drift away so easily. His close friend Charley (Julianne Moore) provides him with at least one good reason to stay among the living, but it's an unexpected encounter with one of his pupils (About A Boy's Nicholas Hoult, in a thoroughly surprising performance) that holds him back from the brink.

Firth really does navigate the highs and lows of George's final hours with grace and subtlety, and it's little wonder that he received so many accolades for the part. The moments when his face suddenly lights up are a pleasure to behold.

Ford does a surprisingly confident job behind the camera too, embracing his narrative and visual palate with intelligence and wit. In lesser hands the use of color saturation to reflect George's mood might have looked clumsy and intrusive, but here it becomes a vital element of Ford's emotionally charged story. The decision to use Mad Men's production team to supply the Sixties vibe was equally inspired.

A Single Man still occasionally feels a little too introspective and knowingly artsy for its own good, but it's a far stronger movie than we had any right to expect - and Colin Firth really is a revelation. Let's just hope that the rest of the fashion community doesn't get any ideas, or we might be looking at Bruno all over again.

4/5

Review: A Single Man

Okay, I'm going to talk a bit about the production values of the movie first. This is a movie directed by a fashion designer after all, so it's worth discussing. If you don't want to bother, then skip down to *story*

The two most prominent things about A SINGLE MAN are:  it's score--by Abel Korzeniowski (the amazing Stephen Trask, who did the music for HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH, was a music executive consultant per the credits). Only on occasions do I ever actually *hear* the music of a film. Most of the times, I'm so engrossed in the story that I don't even remember hearing music: the quiet kind playing on the background for dramatic effect. The loud kind often use for montages? those I do hear because, well, there's no one talking at the moment.  But now and then, the score of a movie is so embedded into the DNA of the film that you cannot isolated. It is one with the visuals and it really enhances what you are watching. Some examples are: TITANIC, SIGNS, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, THE LORD OF THE RINGS, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIM BUTTON, REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, and now A SINGLE MAN.  Which makes it a crying shame that the academy didn't nominate it.
The second thing is the art direction of the film.  A SINGLE MAN is the most aesthetically flawless film of 2009. You can tell Tom Ford directed this movie, and that the team responsible for the production design, is the same from tv show MAD MEN because that show is really something to look at. Every single frame of this movie was flawless; a lot of straight, clean lines, symmetrical shapes, etc. The clothes, the designs, the styles, the cars, the houses, the furniture, the bottles of liquor... nothing was amiss. Even things that had dirt or dust or smudges, you could tell that those smudges were done precisely to look the way Tom Ford intended for them to look.  And that's not all, he employs a color palette trick that really works wonders for the movie: he shoots the movie in a dry, ashen shade that strips almost all colors down until they look sort of grayish. But then, for scenes where Colin Firth's character feels a bit of life stimulation (he's depressed) Tom Ford makes all the color's flush, as if everything comes to life. It is a very neat trick the helps us the viewers, really feel what Colin is feeling and connect with him further.  As far as music and style, Tom Ford has made himself proud. And now the.....
*STORY*
A SINGLE MAN is an adaptation of the 1964 Christopher Isherwood novel of the same name. It deals with a gay, British professor--George Falconer played by Colin Firth--living in southern california in the early 60s. The whole story takes place within one single day in the life of George.  He recently lost his partner of 16 years in a tragic car accident, and the loss has left him depressed. We meet the partner--Jim, played by Matthew Goode, who I must say, is a very handsome man--through flashbacks/daydreams George has of their life together.  Jim's death has left George with no purpose in life and he's considering suicide.
It really is a seemingly normal *day in the life* story; the twist is that it isn't normal, at least not to the audience because we can see that George is planning on killing himself, we can see how Jim's absence is deteriorating him. The people around him, do notice some changes, but they all think he's just under the weather for the most part, with the exception of Kenny (played by Nicholas Hoult, the kid from ABOUT A BOY. Completely unrecognisable! I saw the whole thing and didn't even notice it was him until a friend pointed out), who gets the sense that there's something wrong with George and decides to keep close to him.
Julianne Moore has about two small scenes and then one big one with Colin Firth.  As always, she's fantastic (when will this woman win an oscar?!). She expertly show us a woman who resents to an extent, that the one man she might have truly love and could have made her happy is her gay best friend, but can't do nothing about it. On the other hand, she keeps herself together by sheer force of will and only lets us see the cracks one peak at the time.  Colin Firth is also fantastic at playing George. He's a very quiet, polite character who keeps getting tempted by fate, but is so proper that he will always choose to do the right thing (he's British also, so you know he grew up with the *go by the rules* mentality).  It is a very understated role that on someone else's hands would have been ruined. It would have told us nothing. Colin gives George so much life, he really projects his inner sadness/suffering, with just a look, the way he cocks his head, they way he touches something; only a brilliant actor could do this.  Nicholas Hoult, though his role calls only for him to be the naive, maybe gay young man who senses his professor is gay and wants to connect with someone like him, etc. I think he did all right, he doesn't comes off as too shy or to eager.  Matthew Goode has the least dramatic role, as he's only there to ease George's pain, for George only daydreams of their happiest times together.
The movie is very good overall, I think because there's not much in terms of drama that the story offers, it may feel like it lacks something.  I was worried that being directed by Tom Ford, he would only care about the look of the movie and not have the skills to give it a heart, creating a hollow piece of art, but I think he's done an excellent job in both counts, and I'm very curious to see what he would do with meatier story; something darker.  Grade: A-

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Single Man, A (Tom Ford, 2010)

THE SCOOP
Director: Tom Ford
Plot: A story that centers on an English professor who, after the sudden death of his partner tries to go about his typical day in Los Angeles.

Genre: Drama
Awards: Nom. for 1 Oscar - best lead actor. Won Queer Lion and Volpi Cup (best actor), and nominated for Golden Lion (Venice).
Runtime: 101min
Rating: R21 for some disturbing images and nudity/sexual content.
 
IN RETROSPECT
Tom Ford shows that he has the skills to cut it out as a film director. Known internationally as the man who helped to revive the Gucci fashion house when it was at the brink of bankruptcy in the mid-nineties, Ford’s decision to enter another glamour industry – the film industry – is rewarded with a Golden Lion nomination at Venice. His film, A Single Man, stars Colin Firth and Julianne Moore not as lovers but as lonely companions in a film described by Sean Means of Salt Lake Tribune as “a somber character study of a gay man in the early 1960s”.

A Single Man is not a character study in the truest sense of the words, but it explores the depths of human depression and isolation through a character’s misfortune. George (Firth) is a professor who teaches English at a local university. He is gay and his lover of sixteen years, Jim (Matthew Goode) dies suddenly in a car accident. The cruelty of separation with someone he has loved and treasured each moment with causes him to lose hope in his future and question the meaning of his life.

Firth’s performance is rightly Oscar-nominated. He becomes one with his character in an elegant, understated manner. He never goes into exaggerated theatrics as if trying to show how good an actor he can be. Instead, he triumphs in the art of subtle acting. The result is quite fascinatingly flawed. Firth gives us a character who knows he should be grieving but is unable to because he is at a loss on how he should feel. He keeps most of his emotions inside and finds no avenue or person to “vent his frustration” upon.

In the film’s most morbidly hilarious scene, George nonchalantly puts a loaded gun to his mouth, trying to find the best way to kill himself quickly without making a mess of the attempt only to be stopped at the last moment by a phone call from his old friend, Charley (Moore). Charley is a lonely woman in her forties who lost her husband many years ago. She needs George to be with her, to be her companion (or possibly, life companion). Unfortunately, George sees Charley only as a cheap substitute for love even though he is fairly comfortable around her.

A Single Man questions what truly defines love. Can true love ever be replaced? Is homosexuality such a binding force that a straight relationship “shockingly pales in comparison?” Ford builds on the irony with the presence of another character, Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), a straight student with no clear goal in life who finds George, his professor, in a vulnerable state and discovers his homosexuality. The director uses the effect of Kenny’s curiosity about George’s homosexuality (and perhaps even Kenny’s hidden own) to illustrate the power of love to provide the best explanation for one’s existence.

Ford’s direction is calm and composed. His obsession with close-ups and slow-motion shots is obvious and gives a feeling of melancholia. Earlier I mentioned about Firth’s subtle acting as “fascinatingly flawed”. This subtleness is mostly effective but weak in the sense that it puts a considerable distance between the viewer and the character. Although we understand the inner struggles of George, we have little emotional connection to him. This makes the ending strangely empty and not as poignantly resonating as it should.

SCORE: 6.5/10
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Last updated: 2010-04-09 08:22:35 by eternality_tan

A SINGLE MAN (Tom Ford, 2009)

*** USA

Tom Ford’s Wong-Kar-wai-by-way-of-a-perfume-ad mise-en-scène (you have to resort to a French cliché to describe it, nothing else will do) has little to do with Christopher Isherwood’s pained, ruminative, nourishing prose. But the film just might get to you anyway, thanks to its proficient ensemble.

Colin Firth reverts to auto-pilot for his Oscar-clip-reel bits, and he struggles to sell the surge of epiphany in the closing stretch (since the epiphany is totally unfounded). But he exudes a tersely, hopelessly half-suppressed grief and an elegance that grounds some of Ford’s excesses. What’s more, he maintains an easy, priceless chemistry with each of his gaudy, ever-shifting scene partners. The highlights among them include a baroque/tragicomic/majestic Julianne Moore and a lovely Matthew Goode, whose achievement might even be the most significant: he takes a ghastly plot device – the saintly, ethereally, irreproachably beautiful Dead Lover – and creates someone spontaneous, warm, bewitching yet thoroughly life-like.

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Movies 365: Day 28 – A Single Man

A Single Man could have been a really bad film, a self financed passion project of director/co-writer Tom Ford whose career up until this point has been entirely in the world of fashion. A Single Man could only be guaranteed to have good costumes, and with it’s cast, one could fairly assume that good performances would also be in store, but with a first time writer/director with no real experience, does the film actually succeed at anything aside from looking nice?

Well, it does and it doesn’t. A Single Man follows a day in the life of English professor George Falconer (Colin Firth) still dealing with the death of his life partner Jim (Matthew Goode) who died in a car accident eight months prior. The film takes place in 1962, shortly following the Cuban Missile Crisis, as George deals with his grief, spending time with his friend and fellow English transplant Charley (Julianne Moore), he contemplates suicide, and strikes up a friendship Kenny, with a student (Nicholas Hoult), whose interests seem to be more than merely friendly.

The cast is uniformly good, but it’s Firth’s film and he is very good. Julianne Moore plays the boozey Charley well, and one can’t help but be reminded of her performance in Boogie Nights. As a director, Ford does fairly well, there’s no doubt that the film looks beautiful, but as a writer he falters. The film is a Faberge Egg, gorgeous on the outside, and hollow on the inside. I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to take away from the film at the end, but I can honestly say I wasn’t terribly moved or touched by the film, save for a handful of scenes.

A Single Man

Coming from new director and writer Tom Ford (a fashion designer), A Single Man, starring a particularly downcast Collin Firth, centers  on a day in the life of a broken hearted English professor named George. He is, more or less, a character in a state of near paralysis. He struggles from day to day, hour to hour, and presumably, all measures of time within those parameters. His reason for the mopey attitude is the loss of a lover (is there a better reason?), in an accident, no less. Worse yet, he is gay, making his loss all that much more devastating (considering the statistical difficultly of finding an adequate partner who is not straight). But then again, that doesn’t seem much of a problem for good old George the English Professor, because gay male models seem to enjoy throwing themselves at him in parking lots, bars, and wherever convenient.

All kidding aside, finding another mate is hardly the point here. The point is more along the lines of finding a reason to live. Yes, it is as jolly as it sounds. As George wakes in the morning, he is greeted by a confounding apathy. He drags himself from bed and sees the world in a dull gray haze. Literally, Ford has created a tint to the film which portrays all color in a controlled, faded manner, illustrating just how drab George’s life has become. It is only at precise moments of rushing memory, or a new found beauty, that the world lights up again in full blooming color. George will smell some roses, or see a sunset, and suddenly the world is colorful again, and a flash of life is felt once more, however brief. These bursts of color come on screen like a tease of all life has to offer, taunting a character who never forgets all the hurt that lurks just under its teasing surface, and who is still afraid to plunge back into life’s crazy depths.

But, as most of us know, such stagnancy is unacceptable for an entertaining film. So along comes Kenny (Nicolas Holt), a young student of the Professor’s, and an eager, naive, beautiful young lad, seemingly divinely sent to urge the professor back into the living. And urge he does, as he tries quite ferociously to bring the professor out of his depressed haze. At one point he declares his reasons for befriending the professor to be “you seemed lonely”. But for some strange reason, we suspect his motives lie elsewhere. The obvious assumption is to connect the character to the sexual realm. But to me, his presence seemed more a call for life than anything else. He struck me as a symbol, or a catalyst, rather than a potential lover and detailed character. And I believe that is how he should seem, because that is how George treats him. Not with potential relish for what love may happen between them, but with astonishment that such a person might come to him on that of all days.

For on that day, his last day, George is in practice for his final act: Nothing less than suicide. The question the movie comes to pose then is, will this man find a reason to live again, or will this indeed be his last day? The unraveling of this question comes across as a touching, if not depressing, series of events. At moments, George is affronted by life’s call, and we are left to wonder what it will take to pull this man out of the dredges of mourning. I also found myself wondering, alongside that hope for George, how few souls seem so lucky as to have half a dozen chances at happiness presented to them in a lifetime, let alone in a day. In that sense, George’s life doesn’t seem so bad. Then again, I suspect it is supposed to seem that way, as the hyperbolic series of events which constitute the film are a rather nice set up of George’s tragic character flaw; that being, he is unable to be happy despite his, at moments, picture perfect existence. This idea is only affirmed, in my eyes, by the ending of the film (delivered with startling abruptness) which seems to say George is destined for misery, and anything more is just too much to bare at this, the low point of his life.

In restrospect, I think the best way to describe the essence of A Single Man is through the use of a rather heavy handed apple metaphor (I love red apples). Well, perhaps not the best way, but to hell with it, let me have my fun. I believe A Single Man is like an apple because it is a pretty film, quite shiny and nice to look at, but also, clean and sweet to bite. It is a tasty apple, this movie. That is, every bite except the last bite. Because while this may be a pretty apple with a nice satisfying taste through most of it, that last bite is unexpectedly bitter, with a unappealing bruised taste. And upon that last bite, things seemed particularly sour because this apple, which was so shiny and good to eat at first, suddenly became bitter, and appeared to have not been so great after all. But then, after a little while when that bitter taste was washed from my mouth, it seemed like maybe this apple really was special for precisely what seemed wrong with it in the first place. Maybe that one bitter last bite was what made it special.  Then I think of how I can’t remember but a few other perfectly good apples, and that for some reason, I remember this one with that one bitter bite, and I decide I don’t mind that one bitter bite at all, but appreciate it all the more.
4 out of 4

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Last updated: 2010-02-25 19:15:51 by sbjamo

A Single Man: Better than "Brokeback"

Fashionistas adore Tom Ford. He's the fashion designer who transformed Gucci from tacky to terrific in the 1990s and in doing so lit a fire under the entire luxury goods sector. So how did he do in his premier role as a movie director/writer/producer? Impeccably.

"A Single Man," based on a book by Christopher Isherwood (Cabaret), just might be the most stylish film to accessorize the big screen — ever. But Ford didn't stop there. He also coaxed out first-rate performances from his actors, especially Colin Firth, a single man, college professor, and all around gay guy, who's longtime lover dies in a car crash.

We watch George stumble — ever so stylishly — through his grief. And despite looking like he just stepped out of a Gucci Pour Homme magazine ad, we feel his pain. 

Homophobes should skip this flick. For everyone else, especially Julianne Moore fans, it's a must-see.

See you at the movies, The Movie Slut

A Single Man

Once in a while a movie director makes such an assured and breathtaking film debut that it makes a major impact. Tom Ford was a famous and successful fashion designer who helped build up Gucci for example with his brilliant designs. He should have an eye for beauty and detail and he has directed one of the most beautiful movies of all time. He knows where to place the camera and he knows how to get great performances and that's what surprised me. He directs this movie like he had been directing for decades. His movie follows a gay man named George Falconer who has just lost his partner Jim in a car accident. The film follows one day of his life in 1962 as he tries to put the death behind him. George Falconer is played by veteran actor Colin Firth. Firth played Mr. Darcy in one of the many adaptations of "Pride and Prejudice". He is considered to be the definitive Mr. Darcy. He was also memorable in the Bridget Jones movies. Here he gives an amazing and lived in performance and it is his best performance of his career and the Academy will come calling. That is because Firth is always good but sometimes plays the same dry and snooty character. This time Firth sheds that image and creates a fully formed character different than he has done before. He actually is unrecognizable and a friend of mine said he looked like Al Gore. He creates a sad, hurting and dryly funny man and his performance never hits a wrong note. He gets great support by an amusing and funny Julianne Moore who also creates a great character different then most of her usual roles. Matthew Goode is a great and hot new actor who plays Jim. Goode has been outstanding in "The Lookout" and Woody Allen's masterpiece "Match Point". He makes a lasting impression in a small but memorable role. Also good is Nicholas Hoult all grown up from "About A Boy" as a student of George's and he might help give George a little closure in his life. This movie is mainly about loneliness and the first half is surprisingly a lot of fun,enchanting and sometimes powerful. The movie is beautiful to look at, the costumes and design are flawless, the characters likable and the dialogue is wonderful. The only problem is I felt the movie needed a stronger finish to match it's flawless beginning. I wanted to feel more closure from the story but the movie is worth seeing. Colin Firth is amazing and Tom Ford has made a competent and thrilling debut and I look forward to his next movie.

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Vincent Snavely

A Single Man

I think Colin Firth has always been a more interesting actor the his successes (mostly in the Jane Austen/Bridget Jones ballpark) have allowed for. I can think of few who convey intelligence with more poignancy, as if he is just barely can contain his bitterness at all times. He deserved a defining role separate from Mr Darcy, and with A Single Man I think he found it. Its a tour de force performance in what otherwise can't be called more then an intriguing film. Director Tom Ford clearly worked very hard on his visual style and at times it can be breathtaking, and the film had some promise, with a very strong first forty minutes or so, but it doesn't quite keep up with the quality in its latter stages.

The film follows a day in the life of George Falconer (Firth) an English professor, stuck in a figurative paralysis of grief after the death of his long time partner Jim (Matthew Goode). Finding almost every movement and thought a struggle. I think in the first half-hour of the film, Firth has very little on screen dialogue, the film relying basically on voice-over and his reactionary silence to carry the film. And Firth is simply amazing in these scenes, communicating his huge sense of loss in every move he makes, doing so much by doing so little. The visuals of the film are most impressive here too, with Ford confidently displaying a clear an often astounding visual style. But the problem with a film being so suffocatingly stylized is that by a half hour of a similar thing, it has lost its impact to wow you yet the film doesn't redirect its focus to the story, instead bombarding you with more visuals, which in themselves seemed to get increasingly throwaway. It would have been nigh on a classic if Ford had allowed the second half of the movie to shift away from the camera department and onto Firth where it surely belonged. I think Ford did want to tell a character story and he did succeed in some ways, but its clear where his film-making priorities lie. On a more textual note, the movie took a couple of unwelcome diversions in its latter half which seemed to detract from the strength of the film. There was a particularly disposable scene with a male prostitute, while not bad on its own, just seemed to be there to hold up the narrative and it showed. Whilst I found Julianne Moore's lush to be a bit of an under-developed caricature. I love Moore, but I find myself a little disappointed by her here. Matthew Goode does good work as the messianic dead boyfriend, and is an actor that is more at home in this kind of thing then in say, Watchmen.

But all this is irrelevant and because of how good Firth is in it, it becomes something to see. If Ford can perhaps be less oppressive with his visual style, he is a director with some promise and this is a smart, impressively intelligent debut.

Rating: 7/10

A Single Man (review published January 2010)

To describe the main character as "single" perhaps brings about the same connotation associated with a facebook relationship status. But to describe George (Colin Firth) in such a way, while true, would be minimal and trivial. He is a man apart from this world entirely, seeming to feel as if he has no place.
 
The main course of action takes place over the span of a single day. George's last day. With the death of his partner, he is consumed by melancholy and dreads mornings (although apparently this was the case even before his lover died). He puts up a facade at work and amongst friends but it seems that there is an internal cause beyond his widowed state that is never quite fully brought to the surface. As a homosexual he considers himself a minority, but in 1962 he is not a minority that is feared. He is one that is, as he describes in one of his classes, invisible.
 
Throughout the movie, George thoroughly buys into this idea. People all around him are reaching out, inviting him to do this or that or simply to be with him, but he stays away from any of it. A visual used throughout has George drowning as he tosses and turns in a large body of water, unable to break free. What finally pulls him out and allows him to find a breath of air is one of his students. They spend an evening together after running into each other (although in fairness the student was looking for him) at a bar and George finds friendship and bliss in this outing. He experiences a rare "moment of clarity."
 
The screenplay is insightful and poignant and Colin Firth will likely land a nod for Best Actor from the Academy. He convinces us that he has a great sorrow but that it almost seems bottled, for his character faces internal struggles. The problem is that we never get a chance to dive fully and completely into these sorrows. The narrative arch feels restrained by the 101 min running time.
 
Many of the visuals are desaturated but obtain their color when George interacts with another person and notices little bits of beauty. There is much to admire about human interaction and George knows it, but yet he avoids camaraderie in much of the film. George is a smart person and I'm convinced that something else that is not hinted at troubled this character.
 
This film won't ever get a sliver of the amount of mainstream attention as Brokeback Mountain ever got, but it's characters are more convincing. The love they share for another is indeed the love for another human that anyone can share, and not merely lust-based as I'm convinced Ennis and Jack's was. The pain George goes through is universal. I felt it, but not as much as I think I would have had it been on the screen longer.

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A Single Man

A Single Man could have been a really bad film, a self financed passion project of director/co-writer Tom Ford whose career up until this point has been entirely in the world of fashion. A Single Man could only be guaranteed to have good costumes, and with it’s cast, one could fairly assume that good performances would also be in store, but with a first time writer/director with no real experience, does the film actually succeed at anything aside from looking nice?
Well, it does and it doesn’t. A Single Man follows a day in the life of English professor George Falconer (Colin Firth) still dealing with the death of his life partner Jim (Matthew Goode) who died in a car accident eight months prior. The film takes place in 1962, shortly following the Cuban Missile Crisis, as George deals with his grief, spending time with his friend and fellow English transplant Charley (Julianne Moore), he contemplates suicide, and strikes up a friendship Kenny, with a student (Nicholas Hoult), whose interests seem to be more than merely friendly.
The cast is uniformly good, but it’s Firth’s film and he is very good. Julianne Moore plays the boozey Charley well, and one can’t help but be reminded of her performance in Boogie Nights. As a director, Ford does fairly well, there’s no doubt that the film looks beautiful, but as a writer he falters. The film is a Faberge Egg, gorgeous on the outside, and hollow on the inside. I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to take away from the film at the end, but I can honestly say I wasn’t terribly moved or touched by the film, save for a handful of scenes.

A Single Man (Movie Review)

What to make of A Single Man? Based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood, screenplay by designer Tom Ford and David Scearce and directed by Ford, this movie is extremely well-acted by Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, but ultimately falls short.  Firth plays a professor in the early 60s mourning the unexpected death of his longtime lover (Matthew Goode). Most of the “action” takes place in one very long day, as the Firth character contemplates whether or not his life is worth living without romantic, intense love in it. He goes through the motions of his day, including an emotional scene with his long-time, now platonic friend, Charley, brilliantly played by Moore, but suicide is always in the back of his mind. The movie is beautifully shot as one might expect from first-time director Ford, but basically that is all one has…one beautiful shot after another. Firth, a completely underrated actor, does a masterful job in conveying grief, longing, desperation and ambivalence, but he is done in by the screenplay…a screenplay missing something. You’re left with “This is it? This is what this is all about?” feeling and that’s not a good way to leave a movie theater.

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Last updated: 2010-01-22 06:07:58 by jfuchsman