Usually I like to attempt a dash of humor or sarcasm when reviewing a game or movie, but I feel I would be remiss if I did that for A Single Man. Going into this movie, I knew nothing about this film. I’d seen a preview for it and thought it was some sort of CIA movie set in the 1960’s much like Matt Damon’s The Good Sheppard. Instead what I received was a very potent story of a man trying to move past the loss of a lover, in a time when being a lover was to be invisible.

Colin Firth delivers what may be one of his best performances as College Professor George Falconer, a gay man in the early 60’s. Through a series of dreams and flashbacks we are witness to the cause of his sadness. His partner of 16 years, Jim (here played by The Watchman’s Matthew Goode) was killed in a motor vehicle accident while visiting his family in Colorado. Waking to a world without his love, George struggles to find a reason to face each day. He appears to take comfort in his friend and once lover Charley, played by Julianne Moore. There is a scene that the two share that moved me more deeply than I expected it too. In a flashback, George remembers the night he learned of Jim’s death and seeks the comfort of a friend. To watch the composure of a well educated and rather stoic figure slowly crumble give way to emotion was wordlessly poignant.

Pulling back from this memory, he returns to his life as an educator of the youth. Taking a break from his lesson plan, he talks from the heart. Explaining why minorities are persecuted for either real or imagined threats to the majority, he manages to connect with a younger male student in his class (Nicholas Hoult). Though it’s difficult to tell at first, I soon came to notice that all of the events that I was witnessing are occurring in a single day. Through the flashbacks the everyday moments are given a greater meaning and share a sense of either sorrow or joy that would not have been realized had I not understood the motivations behind them.

The film is shot primarily in a Sepia color scheme giving a sense of age and yet timelessness.  A creative choice by Director Tom Ford is to remove the filter and allow for a more lifelike color whenever George begins to connect with someone. Using this technique I was compelled to notice how often we will have entire conversations with someone, and yet only share real information for a moment of two.  It was a technique that I don’t believe that I’ve seen before, but can see being copied and duplicated in the future.

Though I’ve never seen Brokeback Mountain, I can confidently say that this is the story it was trying to be. It’s a story of love and loss that could have been as easily followed with a heterosexual couple as it was a homosexual couple, and I think that was the point. For those of us who’ve not been exposed to the homosexual lifestyle, it is a realization that loss affects us all the same. The biggest reason I didn’t see Brokeback Mountain was due to the explicitness of the love scenes. I don’t hate someone for their choices, but I do feel uncomfortable watching an act of passion that holds no passion for me.  Instead, A Single Man gives us intimacy, an honest look into a desire I don’t share and yet can understand. If you are someone who’s uncomfortable with this subject, then this is not a movie for you. If you are, however, someone with a more open mind to the plight of others, then you may appreciate it as I did. To note, there are images of male nudity, but it’s nothing more than I’ve seen from Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon or from Gerard Butler in 300.

I’ll give A Single Man 4/5 ships.

Reviewed by Farva