Review of A Single Man (2009) by Mirko B — 30 Nov 2010

Tom Ford's director debut "A Single Man" is like a 1960's take on "Will And Grace" without all the funny moments- a difficult emotional drama styled as a Gucci ad campaign. Everything is perfectly styled: the costumes, the interiors, the lighting design. Even the cars and the tiny details like glasses and cuff links. Ford certainly didn't try to disguise the fact that he's primarily a (celebrated) fashion designer.

Based on Christopher Isherwood's book, the film is a tale happening in a single day in 1960's California where an English professor, George(Colin Firth), decides the loss of his long-term lover Jim (Matthew Goode) has become too much to bear. He goes out and buys a few bullets, but before the actual suicide, he pays a visit to his friend Charley(Julianne Moore)...

Colin Firth's performance was Oscar-worthy. George is an uptight, emotionally crippled perfectionist. He tries to shoot himself on the bed, but then stops and goes to find a sleeping sack to do it in because he's afraid he'll stain his fancy bedsheets with blood. He's painstakingly tidy when he folds the suit in which he wants to be buried(quite probably Tom Ford), and the patent leather shoes to go with it. And the gold cuff links. He seems as if he was about to burst with grief, which isn't expressed with tears but with painful silence which doesn't try to hide the suffering behind the cool front. The director gives us some insight into the relationship through flashbacks, some of them in B/W fashion. Which makes them look like art photography, but this is Tom Ford we're talking about so it's expected. Julianne Moore's role was obviously to put a bit of action and energy into the Colin Firth's depressed professor. Her Charley is flirty, fun and glamorous. But just like George, she uses a stylish facade to hide behind it. When the mask finally falls(with a little help from alcohol), we see her for what she is- a woman hungry for a change in her life, and unable to do it herself. She and George share this fear, this lack of guts. He to pull the trigger, she to finally go back to London and leave Los Angeles behind.

Ford leads you into thinking we're dealing with a suicide, but we're not. Practically at the last moment, the story moves in a different direction when George runs into one of his students, Kenny(Nicholas Hoult) at a bar and continues the evening with him. They end up at home, and as George watches him taking his wet clothes off, we watch George seeing that there might indeed be-what a scary thought!-life after Jim. But before the two of them get to go from platonic to physical, George dies from a heart attack. The director leaves us guessing if anything would have had ever happened between the two. Kenny is like a fresh breeze sweeping George's worries away and making him seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. It's a complex content in a simple narrative frame, which could be Ford's pattern for future projects. Seeing his debut made me wanting more. If this is anything to go by, we're all in for a treat.