"The service is just for family."
"A Single Man" is a movie that taps into our own growth. Finely acted, it
doesn't entertain and then vanish, but stays with us, asking to be revisited. In
an immensely delicate portrait, Colin Firth takes us into the process of grief,
but he is not helped by fashion designer/director/scriptwriter Tom Ford who
builds the film around Firth in multiple images that are often jarring. Firth,
actor and character, doesn't fit easily in the world Tom Ford creates for him.
He is vulnerable and authentic while his director seems obsessed with surfaces.
Firth's George Falconer, professor of literature, seems out of place in a glossy
world of luxury houses, sand, and sun.
George, the
slightly awkward, rather stiff George, answers the phone and hears the news that
his partner Jim (Matthew Goode) has died in a car crash while on a family visit.
The caller, though respectful, remains distant before delivering the
heartbreaker that haunts such partnerships: "The service is just for family."
These men had been in a committed partnership for sixteen years.
On what may
or may not be his last day of the life he is considering ending, George applies
his trademark precision to cleaning out his safe deposit box, his desk in the
English department where he teaches, and to buying bullets for his pistol. All
during this day of preparation, memories of life with Jim stamp themselves in
his mind. He spends an evening drinking and reminiscing with his old friend
Charley (Julianne Moore). The scenes of Charley preparing herself for dinner
with George have the theatrical feel of a photo shoot - Mr. Ford again. Julianne
Moore, always effective, still shows us that she is as lost a soul as George.
In any
partnership built on love, lust, though it may not disappear, often slips into
perspective over years while other things strengthen the bond - fun, working
together, adversity, adventures, shared time. In one scene where George and Jim,
at either end of a couch, are reading quietly is especially revealing of the
depth of their feelings. I wish we had seen more of that.
I could also
have done without the prolonged shot of George, immaculately dressed in shirt
and tie, sitting on the pot while observing the ordinary lives of his neighbors
through slats in the bathroom window blind. Did it enrich the mood or advance
the story? Or did it simply reflect the compulsive need of contemporary
filmmakers to show men going to the bathroom in one way or another. I was happy
when George got off the pot.
No reservations I have about this movie can diminish the performance of Colin
Firth. He is simply marvelous in his reserve and dignity as he builds the
character of a man devastated by grief for the man he lost. His subtle and
touching performance plants many questions in our minds about acceptance and
about the universal nature of love and loss and sadness.
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