Review of A Single Man (2009) by Axelkoch — 19 Apr 2013

Fashion designer turned director/writer/producer Tom Ford provided the biggest cinematic surprise in the whole year 2009 with his debut picture A Single Man. I've always liked films about homosexuality (okay, most of them.

There's rubbish in this genre as well) and this one is an absolute stand-out. Colin Firth foreshadowed his creaming off the profits for follow-up The King's Speech, with his ceaselessly realistic turn as a secretly gay college professor who grieves about the death of his long-time lover.

While 2010's TKS is a such a flawless perfection of movie making, ASM's plot is more interesting and the final good is mesmerizingly artsy. Nicholas Hoult, relatively unknown by the time this film was made, impresses as the young student who comes in the life of Firth's character after his loss, and Matthew Goode makes the best out of his little screen time.

I never expected that a first-time-filmmaker would be able to stun me as much as Tom Ford did with this movie. The use of colors to express emotions, the ability to turn mundane conversations into such absorbing dialogue, the knowledge of how to use the score (oh, so beautiful!) in due time, etc.

It's not a movie to watch many times since it gets a bit boring then, but at first watch, you'll be overwhelmed by this movie.