Score- 8/10

Subjective Synopsis- A gay man tries to cope with the loss of his lover.

BC- One of the most consistently paced films I have ever seen. Picture a road trip with no bumps along the way, on cruise control, with not too much excitement, but yet, never a dull moment. A Single Man was just that. It felt like a Fellini movie but re-directed by Sam Mendes: a film which’s pretext is screaming for a spectacle of obscure shapes and sounds but is wrapped up and tamed with humility. The pace of the film, as I mentioned above, is as neutral and constant as any other worthy of that description. The cinematography is beautifully toned and shot, but it almost seems like a cheat alongside the elegance of the retro architecture (remember this was directed by a fashion designer).

Fashion Designer Tom Ford made his directorial debut with A Single Man and definitely proved himself worthy of a director’s chair. I felt that he truly understood the world in which A Single Man takes place and the complexity of an individual’s mourning and suicidal tendencies, because, after all, he did co-adapt the screenplay from the novel of the same name.

I enjoyed this film very much and I thought it was something fresh; something new. But, I also felt that the story itself was too simple. I was expecting the story to eventually merge into something a little more complex. Maybe even a twist at the ending, but instead I felt like it ended the same way it started. Nothing changed. 

Colin Firth’s performance in A Single Man was absolutely worthy of an Oscar nomination and I am now encouraged to see more of his work after this.