A Single Man (2009)

Tom Ford clearly wanted to make a gorgeous and wistful film, a film that is more about mood than story, more about feelings than action. A Single Man has the surface, it has the striking look, and I was totally engrossed in this sad story about a man who grïeves his dead lover. That said, this is not a film that will change my life. It didn't unhinge me or set me on a different path regarding how I look at things. Is this to say that its beauty was shallow or false? No, maybe not. Just that, somehow, this film didn't quite succeed in what it tried to be: a personal film, a film that speaks about an individual person. In some sections of the film, I felt that the whole thing started to drift off in a sort of general moodiness - the problem was not the emphasis on mood (I love Wong Kar Wai) but when mood starts to feel propped up. It wasn't like that all the time, but now and then. As some reviewers have pointed out: the aesthetics of lush commercials is not far away. And, indeed, one point of reference here is Mad Men - the same problem there. Colin Firth plays the sophisticated college prof, an Englishman who lives in LA (Firth lends him a dignified but sensual demenor). We see him alone and we see him with other people and all the time we get the sense that there is something amiss. We learn that the man's life has taken a drastic turn since the death of a lover. I think the film handles the topic of grief quite well - but one thing I had a hard time understanding was the point of the romantic flash-backs. To me, they were annoying and superfluous. The scenes that depict a young student's attempt to lure his teacher into bed works better and I also liked the quiet encounter between our main character and a boy who thinks he has been picked up for sex, but the situation turns out to be about something else. (In this scene, Ford's taste for gorgeous setting works quite nicely even though it is SO over the top.) I'm not sure whether Ford had some deeper intention with his use of style - whether the very aesthetisized settings and clothes are to reflect the main character's attitude - he expects nothing of life, it should just be kept in order. But nothing here really breaks the spell, and that's precisely what I craved the most when watching the film, that the surface would sometimes be demolished to reveal something else. But - no. Not really. A Single Man remains much too self-conscious, and it is this that makes it hard to be moved by this film.