| |
|
A Single Man (12A)
.jpg)
|
|
Dir. Tom Ford , US, 2009, 101 mins
Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Nicholas Hoult
Review by Carol Allen
Based on Christopher Isherwood's acclaimed novel of the same name, this first feature film by well known fashion designer Ford, former creative director of Gucci, is a perfectly crafted and beautifully acted gem about love, loss and bereavement.
Firth plays George, a middle aged English college professor teaching in a Los Angeles college in the early sixties. He is struggling to find any meaning or sense of future in his life after the death of his long term partner Jim (Goode). The story follows a day in his life, a day which could well be his last, as he contemplates suicide.
Firth's Oscar and other nominations for this performance are well deserved. It's a masterclass in very good, understated screen acting, in that he doesn't "act" a lot, we just feel his love and pain through his often implacable face. There is a heart wrenching scene for example, where George receives the news of Jim's death via the telephone and is then told he's not welcome at the funeral, which is for "close family only". His face, his eyes, his body do not move, but his anguish comes off the screen in waves.
While it is very much Firth's film, all the performances are impeccable. Goode as Jim makes a strong impression in the flashback scenes of their relationship, where we get a convincing sense of the love and long time ease between them without it being particularly sexually explicit, while Hoult is a bit of a revelation as Kenny, one of George's students, a confident yet sexually confused and still innocent young man, who is drawn to George, whom he senses as a kindred spirit. Moore as Charley, George's close woman friend from his youth in London, is convincingly on the edge with her not terribly well hidden feelings for him. As they have dinner together and she gets more and more drunk, one is dreading the inevitable moment when she is going to embarrass herself and us and make a pass at him.
This is not a film about being gay, of course, it's a film about grief and loss, love and friendship, with which everyone can identify. The episodic series of encounters between George and the other characters in his life build up our picture of him and include a touching meeting with a young and beautiful young Hispanic man Carlos (Jon Kortajarena), who proudly sports a James Dean haircut and with whom George shares a cigarette. The judicious use of flashback also fleshes out the character and, perhaps not surprisingly in view of the director's background, the film is visually carefully composed and dressed in every detail, right down to the white angora sweater worn by Kenny.
The film captures not only the look but subtly the feel of the period. The Cuban missile crisis on the news in the background and the never stated fact that at this time homosexuality in California as in the UK was still illegal, hence George, although Jim's partner, being unacknowledged by his lover's family and excluded from the funeral. And the irony of the film's ending is perfect.
|
|
|
