Despite forceful Colin Firth, A Single Man oversimplifies grieving process
December 25, 2009 at 6:00 am by Curt Holman in movies & tv
PILLOW TALK: George (Colin Firth, left) turns to old friend Charley (Julianne Moore) for support.
Most actors build their careers on expressing emotions. Colin Firth has become a star based on the artful suppression of feelings, wittily conveying that stiff-upper-lip struggle to contain impulses that eventually escape against his roles’ better judgment. His ability to reveal the vulnerable spots in his emotional armor makes him a natural as remote-but-passionate leads in works such as “Pride and Prejudice.” Firth gives a career-best performance in the drama A Single Man, but unfortunately the adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel could just as easily be called A Simple Movie.
Firth plays George Falconer, an Englishman teaching college in Southern California in 1964, where he moves through life like a ghost impeccably dressed in a black suit, narrow tie, and huge framed glasses reminiscent of Michael Caine’s. He maintains a state of mourning for his longtime companion Jim (played by Matthew Goode in flashbacks). During such a closeted era, they couldn’t go public as de facto spouses, so Jim must keep his grief to himself, with catharsis forever denied him. In one of the film’s most powerful scenes, Jim’s unseen brother (voiced by Jon Hamm) breaks the tragic news to George on the phone, and sorrow seems to overwhelm Firth in the subtlest way imaginable.
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(Photo Courtesy Eduard Grau/Weinstein Company 2009)
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