A singluar performance by Firth is lost in the art
Sometimes the art can get in the way of the storytelling in a
movie, and that is the case with
”
A Single Man,
”
now out on DVD. The movie is the directorial debut of fashion
designer Tom Ford, and in many ways he is focused on the design and
details almost to a fault.
A singluar performance by Firth is lost in the art
Sometimes the art can get in the way of the storytelling in a movie, and that is the case with “A Single Man,” now out on DVD. The movie is the directorial debut of fashion designer Tom Ford, and in many ways he is focused on the design and details almost to a fault.
The movie is based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood and was adapted by Ford. The story has all the makings of a great drama. Set in 1962, it follows a day in the life of reserved English professor George (Colin Firth.) The day is as ordinary as any as George goes about his life, teaching a class on campus, stopping at a liquor store and the bank, having dinner with a friend. But the day is very different since he has made a decision to do something out of the ordinary.
Ford fills the set with classic pieces from the 1960s, from the clothes that each actor wears to the suburban houses to items such as the vending machines on the college campus where George teaches. The director uses close-ups on some of the set pieces, which do little to add to the story line but do emphasize the time period. He also does many close-ups on the people in the movie, extreme close-ups on parts of faces, that perhaps is meant to show how disjointed George is seeing the world. Ford also chose a method of saturating and de-saturating the color of the film to mark the mood of his main character. The change in color becomes almost distracting from the story, which is told sparingly. The movie is short on dialogue and long on those close-ups emphasized with swelling music.
George is gay and his lover of 16 years, Jim (Matthew Goode), died eight months before. George has not gotten over the loss and it’s clear that he’s hardly been allowed to mourn since only one person knows the truth of his relationship with Jim.
The movie is told through narrative by George, flashbacks of Jim and George together and George’s movement through one day. He awakes from a nightmare about Jim, in which Jim lay dead in the snow with one of the couple’s dogs. Jim died in a car accident in Denver, while visiting his family. His family makes it clear that George is not welcome at the funeral so for eight months, George has been mourning alone.
On this particular morning, as he gets dressed and readies himself for work, George decides that this day will be different. Today he will do something to change things. But it quickly becomes clear that George has not decided to move on with his life, as he unlocks a drawer in his home desk and packs a gun into his briefcase.
Firth often moves between comedies and dramas, but this film is perhaps the best I’ve seen him in. He often plays the slightly repressed, uptight British man as he did in “Bridget Jones’ Diary” and the teen comedy “St. Trinian’s”. But there is something different about his portrayal of George. George is repressed, but for entirely different reasons, and Firth does a good job of capturing the nuances of George’s personality.
The best moments in the movie are the flashbacks, which show the intimacy between Jim and George for short seconds. I’ve only seen Goode in “Leap Year,” a sub par romantic comedy in which every line and movement was overdone. But in this he is subtle and his character says volumes with just a look and a few sentences.
The other telling moment is George’s lecture on an Aldous Huxley novel. He talks to his students about invisible minorities and how minorities become a threat only when they become visible. It’s clear he is talking about the ways in which he makes himself invisible, but the lecture goes over the heads of most of his students. Somehow it strikes a chord with Kenny (Nicholas Hoult,) a young man with delicate features who sits in the front row of George’s class with his girlfriend. Kenny asks his professor if he’d like to grab a drink, but George declines because he has other plans.
He’s been invited for dinner at his best friend Charley’s (Julianne Moore) house and then he also has the business of doing away with himself. In fact, George is in the middle of working out the logistics to his suicide when Charley calls him up to remind him of their dinner plans. He postpones what has come to look like the inevitable.
Charley has little screen time and perhaps only serves to reiterate why it is that George is hiding his true nature from the world. Even though Charely has known George since they were teens in London, she still seems reluctant to believe that what George and Jim had was a real relationship. She is too self-absorbed to even notice that something is amiss with George.
Though the story is a movie and the acting well done, it fills up more time and space than is needed with all the artistic moments. The movie would have been more appealing had it been dressed more sparingly.
Melissa Flores can be reached at
mf*****@pi**********.com
. She writes a blog at http://melissa-movielines.blogspot.com, which features more on movies, TV, food and more.
Movies Under the stars continues
The Hollister Downtown Association continues it’s outdoor movies series July 22 and 29.
Movies Under The Stars started last summer and lasted through the summer months. This year’s event is limited to the month of July, on each Thursday.
The Movie Under The Stars has no admission prices and allows people to bring blankets and chairs into the viewing area. People are allowed to bring their own food from outside and from nearby restaurants. Pets, alcoholic beverages, smoking and coolers are not allowed. Minors must be accompanied by adults.
The movies start half an hour after dark. The remaining movies include:
Shrek 2, July 22: After massive green ogre Shrek and his new bride, Princess Fiona, return from their honeymoon, they receive an invitation to visit Fiona’s parents, King Harold and Queen Lillian, who are the monarchs of The Land Far, Far Away. However, the king and queen are more than a bit alarmed to discover their new son-in-law is a monster the color of algae, and that their daughter’s little problem with a magical spell gone wrong has turned into a full-time skin condition. Certain this isn’t the sort of “happily ever after” they dreamed of for their daughter, King Harold decides to take Shrek out of the picture and return Fiona to her former beauty with the help of Prince Charming, the Fairy Godmother, and ogre-slaying feline Puss in Boots.
Over the Hedge, July 29: Despite Verne the Turtle’s initial hesitance to breach the formidable foliage that has appeared on his doorstep since last fall, the arrival of fearless raccoon RJ and revelation that their new human neighbors throw out enough food in one day to feed a whole forest lead the gang to consider taking the plunge and exploring the snack-filled suburbs. As Verne and RJ learn to work together in taking on their strange new surroundings, Stella the Skunk, Hammy the Squirrel, Heather the Opossum, and Heather’s father, Ozzie, join in on the fun by scavenging for Girl Scout cookies and attempting to scuttle past the pesky new suburbanites undetected.
