Review #103: 'A Single Man' (2009)

This haunting film directed by fashion designer Tom Ford shows the pontentially final day in the life of English teacher George Falconer (Colin Firth). Lonely and in mourning after losing the love of his life, Jim (Matthew Goode), in a car crash eight months earlier, George reflects on his life and throughout the day comes across various people who all see the sadness within him. These include pupil Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), who is seemingly fascinated with George, his old friend Charley (Julianne Moore) who may have a doomed love for him, and a Spanish immigrant and gigolo Carlos (Jon Kortajarena). Unknown to them, George is carefully planning his suicide.

Being directed by a highly-successful fashion designer who owns his own label as well as managing to revamp Gucci, the film looks as impeccable and polished as one of his famous suits. A Single Man is directed with an unnerving confidence for a newcomer, and makes the most out of its 1960's setting. George is a rather wealthy man, and as he fiddles around his large, modern house in all its fastidious neatness, Ford manages to create a feeling of both beauty and style, mixed with emptiness and loneliness. As fantastic as this film looks, it never loses its grip on the story, and all the long slow-motion shots of George reflecting or driving his car allows you to really grasp the hole in his heart.

Firth is outstanding. For all the recognition he got The King's Speech (2010), his performance here blows it out the water. I've never really understood the mass appeal of Firth, but watching him in the scene where he is informed about Jim's death by a family member, finding out he's not invited to the funeral, and that the majority of the family didn't even want to inform him, his embodies a mixture of British stiff-upper-lipped dignity and utter breakdown. And the scenes near to the end where he spends a night with the impressive Nicholas Hoult, he gazes upon him with a mixture of wonder and lust, and self-loathing and guilt.

My girlfriend felt it was style-over-substance, but I disagree. I feel the style was often reminiscent of high opera, where tragedy is commonplace. The slightest facial movement from Firth brought me right back into his story, when the film risked losing me. A moving, emotional, tragic, funny, and (dare I say it?) sexy film that could see the birth of an interesting filmmaker. 

Directed by: Tom Ford

Starring: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult, Matthew Goode, Jon Kortajarena

Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie