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How does one move through grief and recapture a state of hope and anticipation in life?
That's the journey in A Single Man, an ambitious film that addresses questions of life, loss and love.
The movie, based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood, concerns Professor George Falconer (Colin Firth), a professor of literature living in Los Angeles. The person Falconer loves best in all the world has died, and so he moves through his life in a fog of heartbreak.
His mourning has another element to it, and that is secrecy. The year is 1962 and Falconer is gay. What he feels -- about a lot of things, obviously, not just grief -- must sometimes be kept carefully hidden. 'Swinging '60s' and all that notwithstanding, it's still an era in which the persecution of sexual minorities was as much a part of the fabric of American life as apple pie. (Of course, prior to Oprah and reality television, it was also an era in which people still had private lives, so grief wouldn't be especially public anyway.)
Since the death of his long-time lover, Jim (Matthew Goode, whom we meet in flashback), Falconer has remained mired in despair. He's been sleepwalking through the last eight months, and the sadness doesn't abate. But today, he decides, will be different; as if to suggest that the whole world is on edge right along with him, the Cuban missile crisis is the news story of the moment.
A Single Man takes Falconer through one day in his life, and it's a day when friends, neighbours, students and chance encounters help move him slowly away from the depths of despair and toward a renewed appreciation of being alive.
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He encounters his close female friend Charley (Julianne Moore, brilliant as always), a handsome male trick (Jon Kortajarena), a conservative neighbour, Mrs. Strunk (Ginnifer Goodwin) and a keen young student (Nicholas Hoult) who seems to know all Falconer's secrets.
It's impossible to overstate the visual beauty and emotional intelligence of A Single Man. In his directorial debut, fashion designer Tom Ford has created a picture that's arresting in every detail -- sound, light, colour -- and the performances he gets from his cast, particularly Colin Firth, are remarkable.
Ford keeps the camera in people's faces and deep in their eyes, and it's a trick that puts you inside Falconer's mind, experiencing all the yearning, despair, desire and loss right along with him. (It seems unnecessary to state that A Single Man has little to do with being gay and everything to do with being human, but what the heck: "A Single Man has little to do with being gay and everything to do with being human." There you go.)
A Single Man is completely engaging. The film has already won several awards at film festivals, and once you see it, you'll understand why people are clamoring to see Colin Firth win an Academy Award.
Clamoring?
Demanding, more like.
(This film is rated PG)