A Single Man

Okay, so I'm not sure how well this will go over seeing as how this was kind of an assignment for last week's class, but I still want to dedicate this post to discussing Tom Ford's A Single Man (I went and saw both A Single Man and An Education last week so I decided to discuss one in a blog post and submit the other one over the listserv). I saw this movie sometime last week and I can't seem to get it out of my head. I will probably go see it again this week if some time frees up for me.

First and foremost, Colin Firth is fantastic. Who knew that the British "rom-com" star could actually act? His performance as George, a mourning English professor in 1960's, is probably the best performance from any film last year (for me it's a tossup between Firth and Michael Stuhlbarg in the Coen brothers' similarly titled A Serious Man). George is mourning the loss of his partner Jim, played by Matthew Goode, who died in a car accident 8 months before the film takes place. George is so distraught over the loss of Jim that has decided to commit suicide on the day in which the entire film actually takes place. He sets all of his affairs in order: he empties out his safety deposit box, sets out the suit he wants to be buried in, has a last dinner with his longtime friend and ex-lover Charley (played by Julianne Moore), and he teaches his final English class on Aldous Huxley. But as his day progresses, he ends up having little epiphanies that make him second guess his decision to kill himself, an act that he ultimately decides against at movie's end.

Firth's portrayal of George is filled with nuances that makes the viewer wonder who or what he was channeling for such an inspired performance. The supporting characters also do a good job, but this is clearly Firth's film.

The other characteristic of this film that made it standout for me was its superb editing. I have only seen a few movies (Steven Soderbergh's The Limey, for one) that have even made me notice the editing to the extent that I actually have something to say about it. Most films are edited to simply further the plot, but editing in this film was a great mechanism to pace this emotionally dense film. One particular scene that stuck with me was a flashback from when George first found out about Jim's death. After realizing what has happened he runs over to Charley's house, sobbing in the rain. The camera shifts to a POV from George as he falls to the ground outside of Charley's house. The audio track of him crying and Charley trying to console him is off (the images don't match up with the audio). This scene was too perfect.

I know that many of the students probably went to see only one of the two movies assigned, but if you didn't go see A Single Man I highly recommend doing so (I honestly thought it was much better than An Education).