A Single Man: Movie Review

[TotallyOz]

A Single Man

People are afraid to merge on the freeways of Los Angeles, Brett Easton Ellis famously wrote in his first novel about detachment, nihilism and the absence of hope.

This sentiment is brought to life in vivid color in A Single Man, a film that could have been ghostwritten by Ellis after a night drinking Scotch with Eugene O'Neil and Patricia Highsmith.

Here we have one of the very rare types of Hollywood films a movie about true nihilism with no hope of transcendence or a happy ending. It's amazingly engaging to watch, because the characters care so little about themselves, other people, and the outside world in general that anything can happen.

That it was made by Tom Ford, the fashion designer, as his directorial debut is astounding. Glamorama indeed.

The film opens with Colin Firth being contacted by his long time boyfriend's brother (played by John Hamm). It seems that his boyfriend had gone home to visit his family, his car skidded on ice and he died.

When Firth asks about the funeral arrangements, Hamm tells him, It's family only. Ouch.

The next scene takes place at some point in the indeterminate future. It could be a week later, it could be a month later, it could be two years later. The film doesn't tell us, because things as mundane as the passage of time don't matter to any of the people we will encounter.

The entire film will, like Long Day's Journey Into Night, be dedicated to this one day and night. We don't need to see the day before or the day after. Those are trivial things.

Firth narrates much of the film and tells us that he just hates waking up and hopes that eventually he'll just go to sleep and never wake up again. He doesn't like the world, or the people in it, or himself, or really anything at all. The only minor thing that gives him hope is that it's the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis and he figures maybe nuclear weapons will make sure that he doesn't have to deal with living to see another day.

He puts on a nice suit and then packs a gun into his suitcase. During the course of the day we'll go back and forth wondering if he plans to use it on himself, or on the people around him. At one point when he brings it into a bank, you wonder if he's going to try to rob the bank in hopes of getting shot dead while doing so.

Which is, perhaps, kind of the point. Because while his character doesn't like living, he's also so passive that the idea of taking any kind of direct action (like shooting himself) to stop living is beyond him. That would be making a meaningful act, and he doesn't believe in the idea of meaning or action.

So, he starts his day as a college professor. Being that he's Colin Firth, both men and women hit on him, and while he's tempted he never takes any action to do anything about it. Why would he? That would risk bringing joy to his life for a moment, and happiness is not something he believes in.

When the school day is over he goes over to a woman's house. It turns out that decades before he and the woman (Julianne Moore) had sex a few times before he realized that sex with women didn't quite make him miserable enough. Since then she's been trying to get him back into bed.

He goes there knowing that the two of them will drink copious amounts of booze, that she will try to fuck him, that this will bring him down, and that when he refuses to fuck her she'll become depressed as well.

In fact, this scene, which could have been lifted straight out of Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, is fascinating because it becomes clear that the reason these two people spend time together is because they know they will make each other completely and utterly depressed. They'll egg each other on as close as they can get to the pure emptiness they want out of life.

When the booze runs out he goes home and tries to drink enough to be able to shoot himself. He runs out of booze before he can, so he heads over to the nearest bar, where he encounters a young male student who has been stalking him.

The student, who acts in ways that are remarkably similar to the way Highsmith describes Tom Ripley, manages to pick him up using perhaps the only pick-up line that could possibly work on this dude: I hate the past. I hate the present. The future is death.

Sensing the student might be on the same Kafkaesque wavelength, Firth agrees to go swimming with him.

What happens next is something I won't reveal. If you've read any Brett Easton Ellis or Patricia Highsmith or seen any of O'Neil's plays, you can probably guess. Deep down in our heart, we always go into these things knowing what will happen to these people.

Does the film have a happy ending? That's hard to say, because what would be a happy ending for these people might not be what you would think of as a happy ending.

This is serious filmmaking. And, it assumes the audience is fairly literate. In addition to the works I've already mentioned, it also references Alice In Wonderland, The Wizard Of Oz, and Brave New World.

Is it pleasant filmmaking? Again that's hard to say. Think about the works cited. Do they entertain you or depress you? Your answer will tell you whether watching a day in the life of these people will move you or not.

In Glamorama, Ellis at one point states, Life is sliding down the surface of things.

These characters know exactly what he meant.

cc boytoy.com 2013

[Guest DJ69Cruiser]

A Single man was one of the best movies I have ever watched. By "best", I refering to the content, the way the story line was presented, and yes, the acting too.

There are few movies that I would (and do) watch more than once; however this movie is one of them.

It isn't an easy or comfortable movie for me (because of the ending particularly), however it is an extremely emotional experience with substance.

I like movies with which stimulate my mind as well as leaving in me with the feeling my time spent watching wasn't wasted. A Single Man fulfilled that requirement.

DJ