A SINGLE MAN (2009) a gem in Oscar Season

Posted by Daniel Metz

A Single Man is a surprisingly sweet and touching film. It has been collecting quite a bit of buzz lately, especially for the performance by British tough-guy Colin Firth, and my expectations were quite low when I sat down at New York City’s renowned Angelika Cinema. From the first frame of the film, I discovered a beautiful world of love lost, of regret, remorse, renewal, and sadness.

This is the best movie about a homosexual lead in cinema history. Firth plays George, a broken man, a man whose lover of 16 years has recently been killed. To add insult to injury, because the film takes place in 1962, he is not welcome to attend the funeral. Naturally, this sets him on a path of great depression, one which leads him to suicide.

Meet George, a man who talks to himself in the mirror in the morning.

Before he can pull the trigger, he must spend his day interacting with a series of tests and bridges. He eyes a secretary, a Brigitte Bardot look-a-like student, a James Dean look-a-like hooker, his old lover Julianne Moore, and finally a delicious young boy played by the luscious Nicholas Hoult. These meetings are painful and beautiful, and demonstrate that the director and screenwriters (as well as and especially original source creator Christopher Isherwood) can capture human beings doing what they do best: interacting. This film is like a human version of Jim Jarmusch’s film from earlier this year, The Limits of Control.

I need to make special mention of Julianne Moore, who I will be putting forward in my best supporting actress category soon. Her performance as the fruit fly who is desperately and pathetically in love with the lead character is devastating. Moore is perfect at playing messes in feature films (think Boogie Nights), and here she is quite possibly her messiest. She is drunk at 7:30 in the morning, her eyeshadow is horrible; everything she does is so precisely bad that it is deeply saddening.

Julianne Moore's shining moment, where she makes a last-ditch effort to straighten him out.

The role of the straight woman in love with the gay man is not one seen often in cinema although, apparently, it is frequent in life. For my money, Moore has defined the role because she plays it with such grace and truth. Her final moment in the film is a vulnerable and pitiful gesture, kissing too hard on the lips to savor the unobtainable. The door closes on her dramatically, as if to suggest that the audience should get up and give her an ovation until the door reopens and allows her to bow.

The 1960s clothing, architecture, and accoutrements are stunning. The film is directed by a newcomer, Tom Ford, a famous fashion designer. It really shows. Every piece of cloth is gorgeous, every suit perfectly tailored. Every hair style is fabulous. Even the naked bodies, especially that of the young Hoult, are breathtaking. Oh, that ass! Straight as I am, I cannot help but fall for the ass of that kid. All of this glamor creates a strange, nearly surreal feeling for the film; it is steeped in surface pleasures, but underneath these delights is a horrifying sadness.

I wish I could show his ass, but this is the closest to a nude shot I could find.

This is really an awesome first film for director Tom Ford, and I very much look forward to his next work. Like Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, A Single Man also uses camera and editing tricks. Unlike that inferior film (also by a first time filmmaker), this film uses these devices with a successful purpose. The jump cuts and repetitions enhance the humanity and emphasize key moments. Use of black and white create parallel levels of memory. A recurrent device of enhancing the otherwise subdued colors to enliven views with life and love (was this done in Von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark?) creates magical moments of joie de vivre and recall the beauty of the every day.

Notice the color difference between these two images. While the actual effect occurs midshot, this example at least demonstrates the color shift.

The ending, wrought with dramatic contrivance, reminds us that storytelling should be allowed some freedom to be perfect. Like in a satisfying ghost story, good storytelling (be it in literature, cinema, opera or anything else) can be wrapped up in irony and wit that fits the tone of the story. We don’t need films to be left open-ended, nor do we need an improbably happy ending (for the most recent example, see Me and Orson Welles); what a good story (and note that I didn’t say a good realist story) should have is an ending that fits the form and content perfectly.

This film, masterful from the opening minutes, finishes chillingly and, most importantly, it dramatically satisfies. This is a good movie.