Review of A Single Man (2009) by Dawdlingpoet — 21 Nov 2021

I thought this was a really poignant film. Its about loss and I felt a bit about the English 'stiff upper lip', with the main character being an English ex-pat. Its set in the 1960s, at a time when there were fears about a potential cold war and the like and indeed there are aspects of the main character, George, of his life that he feels unable to share with others. Its fair to say that secrets is one of the main themes of the film. Its also about enforced isolation.

It is quite a colourful film, in a literal sense, with a yellow-ish tinge present for some of the running time - at another point its more of a rosy pink/red shade. There is a bit of an arty feel to this film but its not like others with a riddle type feel to the dialogue. This film has less in the way of dialogue but leaves the viewer to decide what they think may be to come, what George is thinking and when, or if, others may intervene. Before I watched it, I knew the basic plot and so I was aware it would be a sobering watch, which of course it was but I'd say it was more of a general, almost philosophical type of a watch, rather than a fast paced, direct face to face emotional sob-fest of a watch (if that makes any sense?). Its more thoughtful and sobering than it is a case of being a direct tearjerker, or an violent action type film. Having said that, if you have had direct experience of suicide or suicidal thoughts then its probably best to avoid this film (I don't view this as a spoiler as such as its part of the main plot which is mentioned in most websites synopsis of the film).

I'm not sure I could describe it any clearer than that. While it is undoubtedly an arty type film, it didn't come across to me as especially pretentious, which is a plus point in my books. Although, having said that, there is some classical music played at one point which perhaps felt a bit forced but it didn't overly bother me as such.

One thing I found particularly moving was the children in the area, young kids - how George observed and interacted with them. It made me think about how society was at the time it was set, how people felt unable to talk about certain things and the uncertainty of the future in different ways - I suppose as far as uncertainty goes, politically speaking we're no better nowadays (at the time of typing this review) but thats a whole other subject!. I would recommend this film, not least for Colin Firths performance as George.