Tom Ford’s first film is an accomplished period piece, a melancholy study of a bereaved gay Englishman in a society — 1960s Los Angeles — that cannot acknowledge his grief.
As befits the work of a fashion designer, it is immaculately put together and looks gorgeous.
But with Colin Firth giving an impeccably restrained performance in the lead role, A Single Man also has a coolness that borders on the chilly.
Firth is "slightly stiff but perfect George", a middle-aged English professor whose lover of 16 years (Matthew Goode) has died in a car crash.
The funeral, a phone call distastefully informs George, "is just for family".
So we watch him trying to go through his normal day, his teacherly formality cracking under the weight of a silent pain that renders the looming Cuban Missile Crisis irrelevant.
He delivers a snappish lecture to his students on fear of minorities, deflects offers of physical and emotional consolation, ominously loads a revolver.
Ford, who adapted the screenplay from a Christopher Isherwood short story, directs with admirable economy and frames each shot beautifully, but there’s a detachment to his camera.
The world it sees is formal and flawless, from George’s sharp suits, modernist glass house and glossy Mercedes, right down to the font on his headed notepaper.
The neighbours who think he’s "light in [his] loafers" are a picture-perfect nuclear unit.
Even the rogue element, Julianne Moore’s soused and self-pitying divorcee, Charlotte, is decked out in couture and a bespoke English accent.
There’s also a lot of idealised male beauty around.
Firth’s performance is strong enough not to be swamped by the production design.
The flashback of him clinging, bawling, to Charlotte, accompanied only by mournful strings on the soundtrack, is terribly moving.
Read More
But Ford himself seems at times frustrated not to be able to penetrate the surface of this world, where gay men must dissemble and feign.
Often, his lens focuses on an eye, as if it were truly the window of the soul.
But on screen it’s just a big, blue, beautiful eye.
Premieres tonight at 6pm and 6.15pm at Vue West End; further screenings Sat 17 and Mon 19 Oct at BFI Southbank (020 7928 3232, www.bfi.org.uk/lff).
A Single Man
MORE ABOUT