Tom Ford’s beyond striking film debut A Single Man is an overwhelming aesthetic and emotional experience, a piece of filmmaking that really and truly becomes something bordering on a living, breathing painting of life. This is an expressionistic, at times impressionistic piece of work, and it never fails to stir up intense feelings while watching it. This is Colin Firth’s crowning achievement as an actor, and it’s sort of a crime that he didn’t win the top trophy that year at the Oscars; his award for The King’s Speech feels so much like a consolation prize it’s not even funny. Julianne Moore is electric in her glammed-up role, giving nothing short of a tour de force performance. Eduard Grau’s painterly cinematography is astonishing to digest, contemplate, and study, and what’s more, the sense of high-style that Ford set into motion was always in service of a thoroughly engaging narrative, with characters you immediately latch onto. Nicholas Hoult (never better) and Matthew Goode (underrated always) deliver devastating supporting turns, the score from Abel Korzeniowski is hauntingly romantic, and I’ll never not be blown away by Ford’s innate sense of what’s cinematic; this is a film that feels both studied and extremely unique, deeply personal, made without any sense of capitulation or compromise. I’m not familiar with Christopher Isherwood’s source material, but as a film, this is a work that feels so singular and deeply rooted from within itself that I feel like I owe it to myself to check out where the story first began. I’m also a huge fan of stories that take place over the span of a single day, and while A Single Man does contain dreams and flashbacks, this is one of the best all-in-one-24-hour-period films that I can think of. There’s an immediacy to every single scene that jacks up the importance to the events, and the tragic finale stings with heartfelt authenticity and ironic exactitude. Jon Hamm’s voice on the phone POWER and Tom Ford recruiting the Mad Men production design team POWER. This is an exquisite, evocative, and all together unforgettable piece of filmmaking. I am beyond excited to see what Ford has up his sleeve with the upcoming romantic drama Nocturnal Animals.
Podcasting Them Softly 