If A Single Man were to win any awards this year, it would definitely get one for Artsy Fartsy Trailer of the Year. Fashion designer Tom Ford makes his directorial debut with A Single Man, based on the acclaimed 1964 novel by Christopher Isherwood. Ford, along with co-writer David Scearce, adapted the source material into a poetic portrait of loss while offering a glimmer of hope and a touch of humor at all the right moments.
Colin Firth (usually cast as the stiff love interest in almost every romantic comedy) plays the titular single man, George Falconer, an English professor who has not gotten over the death of his long-time lover, Jim (Matthew Goode). They had been together for sixteen years and he was killed in a car accident eight months ago. It is now November 30, 1962, a month into the Cuban Missile Crisis. As most of the country worries about nuclear annihilation, George simply stares into the mirror and wills himself to ”…get through the g-damned day.” He means to commit suicide once it’s over.
George goes to the university where a class on Aldous Huxley leads to a lecture about fear and thinly-veiled allusions to homophobia. It falls mostly on deaf and perplexed ears save for a handsome, young student Kenny (Nicholas Hoult) who can sense the deep seeded loneliness in his teacher. George stops at a liquor store and converses with a Spanish hustler (Jon Kortajarena) in front of a billboard for Hitchcock’s Psycho, the wide eyes of Janet Leigh upon them. The evening is spent dining and dancing with his best friend and former lover, Charley (Julianne Moore), a lush of a divorcee who yearns for the carefree days of the past in swinging London.
Ford directs the film with mechanical precision. He is immaculate in composing his shots and meticulous in the way he moves his actors through each frame. Ford certainly seems to have been inspired in his style by Wong Kar-Wai even bringing on Shigeru Umebayashi (who worked on In the Mood for Love and its pseudo-sequel 2046) to compose several tracks for the score. Ford has created an overly ordered world mirroring the structured, well-mannered lifestyle George lives within the rigid confines of 60’s suburbia. However, behind the stoic face he shows the world, he is heartbroken. George lives in a home that looks to have been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is flawlessly made, a shelter ironically lined with large windows. A ”glass house,” as George jokes to Jim in a flashback.
The repressed despair is symbolized in the cold color palette Ford has chosen for the majority of the film. The gray tones warm from time to time reflecting George’s change in mood. Littered throughout the movie are extreme close-ups of lips and eyes, a slow motion pan up on a little girl in pig tails and blue dress. In the face of mortality, George finds new beauty in the tiniest of things.
The results are a striking picture though slightly artificial, sometimes bordering into the territory of a bad 80’s perfume commercial. A Single Man’s most memorable images occur at the beginning of the film as George floats naked in the water, a symbol of death and rebirth. It cuts to him walking across a snowy road towards an upturned vehicle with Jim’s body lying beside it, a dead fox terrier lying next to him. George calmly lies next to Jim, gently planting a kiss on his lips before waking in a start. And this is how his day starts.
Firth offers a sublime restraint in his performance as George. He is the centerpiece and it truly makes the film. He’s already received nominations for the SAG Awards, Independent Spirit Awards, and Golden Globes. He will surely receive a nomination at the Oscars. Julianne Moore provides strong support and television fans should watch out for Big Love’s Ginnifer Goodwin as George’s next-door neighbor, Pushing Daisies’ Lee Pace as a fellow professor, and the uncredited voice of Mad Men’s Jon Hamm.
Rating: *** ½
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