A Single Man- Movie Analysis

Why A Single Man is my favourite movie of all time

Dear reader,

I have since long wanted to talk about this movie to someone, anyone who had seen it. Having not found any such individual I now proceed to release this piece into the ether.

For the sake of those who haven’t seen the movie, A Single Man is the story of this depressed gay professor (played brilliantly by Colin Firth who got an Academy nomination for the same) who after losing his partner of 16 years has no will to live. He sees no future for himself and just mechanically “gets through the goddamned day” as he puts it. One morning he decides to close all accounts (financial and emotional), live a perfect day and kill himself at the end of it. The movie follows him through that one day.

I watched it about a year ago and I found myself sobbing quite hard at the end. Not the wailing sob mind you, the quiet why-did-it-happen-to-the-poor-guy sob. A deep sort of emotional bond.

Now I don’t do emotions very well. I don’t respond with tears to everything I see, hear or watch. Yes I do tear up a bit at things involving me but I have never quite felt the way I did. I still don’t have words to describe what I felt.

I have shown it to my mother since who consented after a lot of pleading on my part. She did not have the same reaction to it as I did. I don’t know why. Maybe I over-reacted that day. Maybe it was because I was having a Colin Firth phase that I loved it so much. Maybe I am just over-rating it a bit. But I can just not deny that every time I watch this movie, I am moved. I may not cry as much as I did the first time but still it is pretty overwhelming.

And now what I really liked in the film.

What follows may well be a debate on authorial intent versus viewer’s response. I had known Tom Ford strictly as a designer prior to watching the film and knew nothing about the guy. It was his directorial debut after all. But somehow I read layers and layers of meaning into each scene every time I watch the movie. It’s a bit like reading a book again and again, you always find something new about the characters or the plot points or the dialogue. I like to think Tom Ford also interpreted the scenes in his head the way I do them.

The first thing-Colour.

The movie employs colour as an important way of communicating emotions to us. Everything involving George, present day, is muted –usually pastels or brown or black or gray. This conveys to me at least the fact that he is morbid. Depression is a very easy thing to write about and describe. However, communicating it to a viewing audience is really hard. Imagine for one second how you would do it if you were the director. You can’t make the guy sob all the time; you can rely on the actor’s capabilities only up to a certain extent. Ford found a way out of the conundrum. Everything George “sees” in the manner of really absorbing what he sees is in heightened colour. The colour of the rose he smells, the colour of his secretary’s eyes, the colour of a student’s hair, the colour of the hooker’s lips. For the first time in a long while, he is actually taking in his surroundings without blundering blindly throughout the day. Each memory /flashback he has of Jim and himself is heightened in colour as if those memories will never fade with time.

The second element- Music.

The music for this film has been provided by Abel Korzeniowski (Additional music byShigeru Umebayashi). The harmonies in the background are mostly intricate violin passages. But they always convey the mood of the setting. It has been said that violin is the instrument that is closest to the human voice. This movie employs that fact to the best benefit. The melody makes you feel euphoric, excited, depressed and content, a series of cascading emotions that are very intrinsic to the movie-watching experience.

The third element- Imagery.

The film itself is interspersed with brief clips of a man in water, sinking, flailing,  and unable to get out despite his efforts. This man is metaphorical of George, in his own pool of darkness and sadness, suspended and sinking in his own grief. Towards the end however as George makes peace with himself and his life, the sinking man now rises to the surface.

Apart from this, there is an overall tone of perfection belying imperfection in the film. George is perfect for the outsider but far from it on the inside. His friend Charley is stunning in her beauty and her house could be right out of those home magazines, but deep inside she too is broken ,and alone, forever hoping George will be hers o e day. George’s neighbours themselves look like the perfect family but even they have their own imperfections.

Even the perfection of Carlos’s (the hooker’s) physical form belies the vulgar nature of his trade. But then like Carlos says “Even awful things have beauty of their own.”

The fourth element-Silence.

The movie explores silence as an entity in itself. As Firth put it in one interview “Silence can be serene, beautiful and beatific or it can be suffocating and crushing.” There is silence in companionship, the way George and Jim spend their evenings just reading sitting next to each other. That silence is desirable, it is cosy, and it is wrapped in the knowledge of someone being there in it with you. But every morning after Jim’s passing, George experiences a stifling silence, one that strangles him in the knowledge of being alone in this world.

The Fifth element-Colin Firth, or rather his acting.

Now I reserved this for the last because I don’t want anyone to think that I liked the movie because he was in it. I respect him as an actor and have frankly hated some other movies he has done. But he was transcendent in A Single Man (hello, academy award nomination). The movie would have sunk without a trace had it not been for his marvellous portrayal of George Falconer in the movie. I have never experienced grief of that kind in my life (and God forbid don’t) but something made me connect with George and cry. I won’t lie about it. This was some real good acting I saw and I am not one to be taken in easily.

A beautiful movie, with beautiful people in it and a beautifully heart-wrenching story. There was something in it which reminded me of Khaled Hosseini’s writing in it.

I am done with my raving. On with life now.