A Single Man (2009)

Director:

Tom Ford

Writers:

Tom Ford (screenplay)
Christopher Isherwood (novel)

Release Date:

February 2010 (Australia)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A story that centers on an English professor who, after the sudden death of his partner tries to go about his typical day in Los Angeles. |

Plot Keywords:

Death | Car Accident | Skinny Dipping | Gay Kiss | Student

Awards:

3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Colin Firth	...	George
Julianne Moore	...	Charlotte
Matthew Goode	...	Jim
Ginnifer Goodwin	...	Mrs. Strunk
Nicholas Hoult	...	Kenny
Ryan Simpkins	...	Jennifer Strunk
Paulette Lamori	...	Alva
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Nicholas Beard	...	Student
Brad Benedict	...	Tennis Stud #1
Paul Butler	...	Christopher Strunk
Ridge Canipe	...	Young boy
Alicia Carr	...	Secretary #2
Jenna Gavigan	...	Secretary
Brent Gorski	...	Walter
Adam Gray-Hayward	...	Russ
Marlene Martinez	...	Maria
Jeremy Mitchell	...	Tennis Stud
Lindsay Moulton	...	Grant's wife
Tricia Munford	...	Cashier
Lee Pace	...	Grant
Keri Lynn Pratt	...	George's Secretary
Aaron Sanders	...	Tom Strunk
Teddy Sears	...	Mr. Strunk
Adam Shapiro	...	Myron Hirsch
Nicole Steinwedell	...	Doris
Maya Waterman	...	Secretary

Runtime:

Canada:99 min (Toronto International Film Festival)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Artina Films

Trivia:

Colin Firth was originally not available for the role and someone else was cast. Then there was a shift in the movie schedule and Firth was eventually able to take the part.

Handsome but thin and narcissistic Isherwood adaptation

George Falconer has a plan to finish his own life through grief for the loss of his lover. The film looks at his life past and present over the course of a day: the self-contradicting reasons why it's at once too good either to bear having lost or to forego.

This seems like a fairly straightforward premise for a drama. The difference here though is that George's lover was a man. Given the 1960s period backdrop, which Tom Ford has meticulously re-created for the film, this is of the utmost significance, re-informing the nature of the relationships between the characters and re-aligning the bias of the film's purpose. It is the bittersweet nature of homosexuality, at the outset of the American Civil Rights movement, which subsumes the basic drama of grief and love: it is what the film's about.

The film looks good. A handsome and well-dressed cast are nicely framed but dwelt upon to the point of being fetishised. Beyond this, Ford hasn't got the first idea how to create drama or even purpose. Bleeding from filtered semi-monochrome into (proto-Sirk) saturated technicolour at the introduction of people who provide him with stimulating distraction is cheap and not developed. Neither is his wistful script at all gripping, with limp gestures for ideas that simply provide text for the shot. There may be clues buried in literary references - Huxley, Kafka, Capote - but they're plastic symbols which do not bubble up into the dialogue.

There has already been Oscar chat concerning Firth's fairly against-type turn as the grieving George but let's stop that right here. Firth is good - professional - but I wasn't at all convinced. His behaviour on screen lacks a personal conviction. He's committed to serving his director alright but it's awkward. There are moments of levity and joy during the film but Firth does not carry them whilst wrestling with his loss or his dreadful decision to end that struggle. The case for seeing Genova in which Firth's (straight) widower acts on his grief for the wonderful Michael Winterbottom is now pressing. Beside him, neither Nicholas Hoult (who needs lessons in transatlantic annunciation) nor Julianne Moore (who could give them) add much. Even the opening titles music of Abel Korzeniowski had paled to the unmemorable by the close.

A tepid project all round then whose sensuous surface is pretty much the extent of its worth. 3/10