“A Single Man” Universalizes Colin Firth’s Pain

By David Simmons
February 4, 2010 Issue


Colin Firth—whose credits include Bridget Jones’s Diary, the BBC miniseries Pride and Prejudice, Love Actually, and Mamma Mia!—may do his finest work yet in A Single Man. Here he’s George, an English professor devastated by death of his longtime partner Jim (Matthew Goode, seen mostly in flashbacks). The film opens with George aimlessly floating naked in a large, dark pool of water. Is this a symbol of his emptiness, his vulnerability, his loss of mooring, his emotional drowning?

Director Tom Ford has created a film that at once jars us emotionally while at the same time purposefully keeping us at a distance. This disconnect is made tangible in the opening. We see a car that’s flipped over on an icy road. As we gaze at the wreck, we are met, several seconds later, by the sound of the crash. We feel shock, but it’s delayed. We gaze with a mixture of curiosity and horror as the camera zooms in on the bloody body that’s hanging out of a smashed window. Suddenly George is there, kissing the lips of the dead Jim. It’s the perfect Freudian dream moment—one where love meets death, where emotion meets coldness. And it sets the tone for the rest of the film, as George struggles to find meaning in a world comprised not only of searing pain but emotional numbness.

Ford keeps a very shallow depth-of-field for much of this film, a technique which echoes visually what George might be feeling emotionally; he’s constrained by a closeness that prevents him from seeing the big picture, from being able to process and put into perspective his new, empty life. For instance, as George prepares for his day at work, we have extreme close-ups on the mundane articles of daily life, such as a comb or a neatly folded pair of socks. The tight cinematography imbues them with added significance. These are the props in his morning ritual, an absurdist drama he has been called to perform. In voice-over George tells us, “By the time I have dressed and put the final layer of polish on the now slightly stiff but quite perfect George I know fully what part I am going to play.” As he gazes into a mirror his voice-over explains, “Staring back at me isn’t so much a face as the expression of a predicament.” George is starting to recognize that life has become merely a series of rehearsals for this play, and that the performance itself may not ever be realized.

Thankfully, George has his best friend and one-time lover, the boozy Charley, played lusciously by Julianne Moore. Charley comforts George, perhaps because of their similarities. She also is alone. She also puts on her face in the morning for a performance out in a society that would withhold power and privilege from her. But she crosses a line when, while lying next to George on the floor, she says, “Don’t you ever miss this? What we could have been to each other? Having a real relationship with kids?” George responds, “I had Jim.” Charley continues: “I know, but I mean a real relationship. Geo, let’s be honest. What you and Jim had was great but wasn’t it really just a substitute for something else?” George responds, “Jim wasn’t a substitute for anything, and there is no substitute for Jim, anywhere! And by the way, what was so real about your relationship with Richard? He left you after nine years! Jim and I were together for 16 years and if he hadn’t died we would still be together! What the hell is not real about that?” Suddenly, George notices what differentiates the two of them. In 1962 America, Charley’s failed relationship is ascribed as “normal” by society, while George’s loving relationship had to remain hidden. Even Charley is unable to see this for what it is. George is truly alone.

As we head into Oscar season, it seems likely that A Single Man will continue to win awards. Firth has been awarded Best Actor by the Venice Film Festival, and by the San Francisco, San Diego, and Austin Film Critics. He seems poised to be nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards. A Single Man, like this season’s similarly brilliant Precious, derives its power not only from the pain experienced by its lead character, but from the way the film universalizes that pain.

GIBSON RISES AS “DARKNESS” FALLS
The last time Mel Gibson was in front of a camera was M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs way back in 2002. Since then, Gibson has done some ambitious and well-received work behind the camera, directing 2004’s Passion of the Christ and the epic Mayan humdinger Apocalypto. After that, things got a little screwy for Mel, who was arrested in 2006 for a DUI and reportedly made several anti-Semitic remarks to the Jewish police officer who booked him. Gibson later affirmed the accusations saying that his comments were “blurted out in a moment of insanity.” Yikes. Scandals like this have been known to finalize some of Hollywood’s most promising careers, but you had to know Gibson would be attempting another shot at the limelight. The question is, what film would it take to bring Mad Max back from “insanity”? The answer apparent—Edge of Darkness, a movie adaptation of an ‘80s BBC series, written by William Monahan (The Departed) and directed by Martin Campbell, best known for helming the recent Bond picture, Casino Royale.

The plot soon reveals itself to be thicker than Gibson’s Bostonian accent. Thomas Craven (Gibson) is a veteran homicide detective for the Boston Police Department and a single father. When his only child, twenty-four year-old Emma, is murdered on the steps of his home, everyone assumes that he was the target. But he soon suspects otherwise, and embarks on a mission to find out about his daughter's secret life and her killing. His investigation leads him into a dangerous, looking glass world of corporate cover-ups, government collusion and murder—and to shadowy government operative Darius Jedburgh (the gruff Ray Winstone), who has been sent in to clean up the evidence. Craven's solitary search for answers about his daughter's death transforms into an odyssey of emotional discovery and redemption. And just like the Odyssey, the film is one disaster after another.

The storyline is ridiculously tangled with one over-the-top, game-changing time bomb after another with Gibson spending more time gabbing and questioning than ever doing anything about it. Monahan definitely has the Boston diction down pat. The dialogue is the strongest part of the script with great quotes such as, “You had better decide if you’re hangin’ on the cross…or bangin’ in the nails.” It’s too bad the plot points quickly smother these great moments with a thick blanket of incredulity. Gibson, on the other hand, is nothing short of fantastic. His return is a wrenching, guttural, and smoldering performance and is easily among his best. It’s a rather smart play for Gibson to reappear with a dark, dramatic role rather than pop out like a jack-in-the-box for some lowbrow, rom-com chuckle fest. That being said, this movie was not the vehicle he wanted to jumpstart his acting career. The theme and tone of the movie work, but the plot moves with a laggard’s urgency that will bore all but the most hardcore of government conspiracy fans. One could only hope that Gibson finds his way behind the camera sooner rather than later (he’s rumored to have a Viking epic in the works with Leonardo DiCaprio) before he wears out the latitude he earned for himself with Braveheart and Mad Max.
- Adam Pope

DVD OF THE FORTNIGHT
Kathryn Bigelow’s first film in seven years, The Hurt Locker, follows an explosive ordinance disposal team through a particularly tension-filled rotation in Iraq. The movie is as exciting as any traditional Hollywood war picture and includes a fresh twist on the “loose cannon” soldier. It has already won numerous critics’ awards and is deserving of every one of them. There have been lots of movies about the never-ending Iraq fiasco, but none of them have made me feel so…embedded. Bigelow is on her way to becoming the first woman to win a Best Director Oscar, unless the Academy—renowned for its past wrongheadedness—goes with her ex-husband, James (Avatar) Cameron.
- Christopher Manson

BEACHCOMBER READERS ON RECENT MOVIES
“Tooth Fairy. The ending made it worth seeing. It was hilarious!”
- Melissa Key

“Spy Next Door. Jackie Chan at his worst.”
- Sara Ivy

“I loved It’s Complicated. Nine was great, but I found The Lovely Bones disturbing, even though the friends I went with loved it.”
- DuRee Stewart

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