Director: Tom Ford
Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult
Certificate: 12A
One would question whether it is Colin Firth’s BAFTA winning performance or Tom Ford’s impressive direction which makes this a must-see film. I would answer – both. A Single Man follows single man, George Falconer (Colin Firth) through a single day of his life in Southern California, 1962. George’s male partner Jim (Matthew Goode), of sixteen years has died in a tragic car accident just eight months before and Jim’s homophobic family have refused George the right to attend his funeral. Within twenty-four hours we follow George attending the University as a Professor of English and arranging plans for the evening with a previous lover and close friend Charley (Julianne Moore). In these everyday acts however he is secretly saying goodbye to his friends and colleagues as he plans his suicide, to escape from this world where he is deeply alone and misunderstood and where ‘death is the only future’. At a moment of enlightenment George meets Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), a student of the university, who is intrigued by his professor’s mysterious character. Kenny realizes George’s plans to commit suicide and George, jolted into realizing his purpose in life, demolishes his suicide plans; yet with tragic irony he suffers a heart attack just as the film comes to an end.
Ford makes this a directional debut to remember. The direction, like Ford’s angular, clean cut and truly unique fashion, is a masterpiece. We are drawn into George’s world; a fabulous but unnerving place to be. Our senses are heightened as we are made aware of the beauty to be found everywhere; in people or places; sounds or sights and more importantly in the good or the bad. We come to understand, through a moving scene with Hoult, that we can never understand another person entirely because we see them through our own slanted perspective. Ford’s portrayal of George, although highly sexualised, is sensitive and moving. We feel George’s pain and strangely we long for his peaceful release in death.
If there is a moral to the plot at all, it would be to be yourself (rather cliché), even if that means being part of a minority group. Anxiety concerning singularity is unnecessary as it is the majority group you threaten who holds the fear.
Cast: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult
Certificate: 12A
One would question whether it is Colin Firth’s BAFTA winning performance or Tom Ford’s impressive direction which makes this a must-see film. I would answer – both. A Single Man follows single man, George Falconer (Colin Firth) through a single day of his life in Southern California, 1962. George’s male partner Jim (Matthew Goode), of sixteen years has died in a tragic car accident just eight months before and Jim’s homophobic family have refused George the right to attend his funeral. Within twenty-four hours we follow George attending the University as a Professor of English and arranging plans for the evening with a previous lover and close friend Charley (Julianne Moore). In these everyday acts however he is secretly saying goodbye to his friends and colleagues as he plans his suicide, to escape from this world where he is deeply alone and misunderstood and where ‘death is the only future’. At a moment of enlightenment George meets Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), a student of the university, who is intrigued by his professor’s mysterious character. Kenny realizes George’s plans to commit suicide and George, jolted into realizing his purpose in life, demolishes his suicide plans; yet with tragic irony he suffers a heart attack just as the film comes to an end.
Ford makes this a directional debut to remember. The direction, like Ford’s angular, clean cut and truly unique fashion, is a masterpiece. We are drawn into George’s world; a fabulous but unnerving place to be. Our senses are heightened as we are made aware of the beauty to be found everywhere; in people or places; sounds or sights and more importantly in the good or the bad. We come to understand, through a moving scene with Hoult, that we can never understand another person entirely because we see them through our own slanted perspective. Ford’s portrayal of George, although highly sexualised, is sensitive and moving. We feel George’s pain and strangely we long for his peaceful release in death.
If there is a moral to the plot at all, it would be to be yourself (rather cliché), even if that means being part of a minority group. Anxiety concerning singularity is unnecessary as it is the majority group you threaten who holds the fear.
LOVED this movie, Tom Ford is pure genius whether its cutting a suit or editing a film. PERFECTION.
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