Friday, December 11, 2009
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Friday, December 11, 2009
MOVIE REVIEW
A Single Man
A Day In The Life, On Death's Trap Door
Life's crossroads: Colin Firth in
the performance of the year as George Falconer, a British college professor
whose partner's death has scarred each day of his life in Tom Ford's film "A
Single Man", which opened today and expands on Dec. 25.
The Weinstein Company
By
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
Friday, December 11, 2009
Colin Firth gives the best performance of his acting career in fashion designer
Tom Ford's amazing directing debut "A Single Man", based on the same-titled
novel by Christopher Isherwood, acting surely hard to top for Oscar honors come
March. Mr. Firth ("When Did You Last See Your Father?") plays George
Falconer, a college professor in L.A. in late November 1962 hanging on by a
thread after his partner Jim ("Watchmen"'s
Matthew Goode) is killed in a car accident. It's a month after the end of
the Cuban Missile Crisis and George, struggling to find a reason to exist,
endures a private hell he's been preparing to end.
On a single day, Friday, November 30, 1962, George swims around in his mind,
near-catatonic in a world that for him has been frozen in time, reduced to gray
memories and heartbeats of emotion. For him the immediate future is a
frightening proposition.
Twenty-eight-year-old Spaniard Eduard Grau's top-notch, stylized cinematography
represents the living, breathing synapses of a soul scarred forever by loss.
Mr. Grau displays a catalog of Hitchockian "Vertigo" shots and Mr. Ford cements
appreciation for the legendary filmmaker with a shot of a building-size wall
showing Janet Leigh's eyes from "Psycho". Vibrant visuals from Mr. Grau
crystallize the vacillations of George's mood. George's soul is flickering
with life yet floating toward death.
Mr. Firth's exquisite acting is composed almost exclusively of silences and
reactions to them, as well as reactions to what is going on in his head.
One scene that isn't funny becomes so and features a sleeping bag. The
scene epitomizes just how great Mr. Firth's work is. The scene occurs in
silence and there's never an attempt to play it for laughs yet you will be
laughing -- even if uncomfortably.
With few exceptions the internal monologue of despair and remembrance in Mr.
Isherwood's novel is retained on the big screen. Mr. Firth plays the
emotionally paralyzed George as a resigned, defeated man postponing his endeavor
to avoid life rather than as a tragic figure victimized by life's cruel blows
and circumstances.
There are flickers of hope for George as two people emerge in his life as
guardian angels, last-stop pillars in the attempt at renewal of a life consumed
by pain. One is Charley (Julianne Moore), a British would-be socialite
whose sin is Tanqueray gin. The other is Kenny (a great performance by
Nicholas Hoult), a student in George's class who wants to look at life in a
refreshing way -- in contrast to George -- who wants to remember how life was.
Mr. Ford excels tremendously in the direction of the story he writes, which has
abundant passion and spirit. There's beauty and eloquence in his
image-making. And when this philosophical film seems to devolve into
melodrama it puts on the brakes. Shot in 21 days and edited over six
months, "A Single Man", which opened in selected cities today including San
Francisco, doesn't wallow in self-pity and resists heavy sentimentalizing.
It is at once a lucid, literate and intelligent adult work filled with humor,
philosophy, love and a joie de vivre, and it's one of the year's best films.
With: Jon Kortajarena, Paulette Lamori, Ryan Simpkins, Ginnifer Goodwin, Teddy
Sears, Paul Butler, Aaron Sanders, Keri Lynn Pratt, Lee Pace, Marlene Martinez
and Nicole Steinwedell.
"A Single Man" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association Of America
for some disturbing images and nudity/sexual content. The film's running
time is one hour and 39 minutes.
Read more movie reviews and stories from Omar
here.
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