REVIEW: A Single Man (2)

REMAINS OF THE DAY

Much of A Single Man, from designer Tom Ford, is graced with a fashionista’s impeccable touch—right from the wood-paneled interiors that give the film a 1962 vintage feel that’s almost visceral, to the beautifully reconstructed car accident in the snow, where Colin Firth can bend down to kiss his dead lover (Matthew Goode) one final time, if only in his dreams, since he was forbidden to attend the funeral by the family. The relationship may have been without social sanction but even years afterwards, he stills feels a numbness from the loss that makes him embark upon each day in search of the kind of upheaval that would release him from this despondency.

Mr Firth abandons his usual starched-shirt primness and draws upon reserves of empathy to bring us a performance that is indeed a remarkable achievement. The stiff upper lip is still right there but it sometimes laces even the most affecting moments with the slightest undercurrent of self-depreciative humor even while the character seems to be in the throes of an almost throttling emotion. There is a personality to this man that is delivered to the screen in consummate fashion.

The love affair between the men is brought alive in a series of flashbacks, as a deeply felt kinship that was the cornerstone of both men’s lives. Finally here is a gay relationship that doesn’t appear to have been sanitized for mainstream consumption. There is some inherent conflict of class, a hint of sexual charge, and the kind of verbal sparring that makes this bond feel real and joyful. Mr Ford’s film doesn’t wear its politics of sexuality on its sleeve. Somewhere there is a speech on oppression and the ‘hidden’ minority. A ‘gay gaze’ is also very much in evidence whether looking homo-erotically upon shirtless tennis players in session, or when Mr Firth swims naked underwater in lyrical fashion. However, this is cinema that cannot be labelled as belonging to a niche, given its universality. 

The film is shot mostly in autumnal shades but the screen lights up with a suffusion of colors whenever Mr Firth encounters moments of tenderness or warmth, or adventure. When he bends down to sniff at a dog his face is suddenly flush with life (‘smells like buttered toast’, he says); or when a Spanish hustler with a James Dean quiff bends close to light his cigarette, his lips quiver with a seductive redness and there is a knowing aquamarine glint in his eyes. Much of this parlaying between men in the film is laced with the thrill of underground courtship since the sexual persuasions of the men who engage in it weren’t immediately detectable in those times. Nicholas Hoult plays the student who somehow ingratiates himself into Mr Firth’s day in a mildly flirtatious manner, bringing in more warm tones into the pastel landscape of the film.

This does occasionally bring to mind M Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, not just in the use of color as a signifier (in that film the color red indicates the brush of death) but also in the way both protagonists (Bruce Willis plays a ghost who doesn’t know he’s dead) seem to represent the living dead almost. A scene featuring Mr Hoult sleeping in the settee, his face radiant with warmth from the hearth, recalls almost in a kind of inverted way, Olivia Williams (who plays Mr Willis’ bereaved wife) reclining in the couch, wrapped in a red shawl, shivering as she exhales—the scenes respectively provide both leading men that elusive moment of clarity that seemed to have passed them by. The Sixth Sense was about the departed and its cinematic texture is pervaded by an overriding melancholia. In A Single Man, although we are sometimes induced to a lump in our throats, much of the sadness is impenetrable—we are constantly reminded that although ostensibly this film is an elegiac paean to suffering and human loss and loneliness, it is really about the opposite of all these things.

Comments

[Deepa Deosthalee]

Excellent review VP. Loved the film and once again, love your style of writing. :)

[Vikram Phukan]

Thanks Deepa. Just earning my stripes, as they say. It's so much fun writing about a film that's actually good. And I got to watch 'The Sixth Sense' again because that last scene just got stuck in my head as something I had seen before.

[Gazal]

What a brilliant review Vikram! Loved the film and your review does complete justice to it. :)