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Saw Colin Firth in, "A Single Man," last night and I must say both the

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wife and myself kicked ourselves (and each other) afterwards for having blown baby-sitting money on it.
No, Firth does not give an Oscar-worthy performance: I've always felt he had an extremely limited acting range, no emotive capability. This film confirms it.
Yes, it is a movie about a gay man dealing with the loss of his lover. Some here may twitter that I went to a "gay" film but why should that be a non-starter? Is it a worse activity than slaughtering men in war or crime?
No, the problem isn't that it is a gay film but that it is a bad film about gays. Julianne Moore, another actor known for her under-acting decides to pull out the stops in this one with disastrous results. Why she felt she had to thrown her wig into the "worst English accent" competition is a mystery.
Tom Ford, the first-time director, is a super-star clothing designer. He should have stayed within his area of expertise though the ill-fitting suits in this film aren't exactly good advertising.

Follow Ups:

I couldn't disagree more, tin! - Bhasi 13:39:38 03/05/10 (0)
I thought it was an excellent adaptation of an under-appreciated novel. Although the central relationship is a gay one, I read/saw it as principally an examination of bereavement.
The film deviated from the book - heavy-handedly, I thought - in having the deceased's family exclude the surviving partner from the funeral. In the book, he opts not to attend. Also, suicide is hardly referred to at all in the original. Much of the dialogue is faithfully transferred, though.
Yes, Julianne Moore's character was a bit 'over the top', but so she is in the book and I must say I saw one or two people I've known in her! A fine comic/tragic performance, I thought. We've discussed accents here before, but really hers was not at all bad. Ex-pats, especially long-term ones, are almost bound to sound strange to some.
Firth's performance, too, was very moving, I thought. Maybe it'll be better appreciated on this side of the pond.
So, too, I suspect will Nicholas Hoult's turn as Kenny Potter. Remember him as the very English schoolboy in About a Boy?
Tom Ford obviously has a designer's eye. Some of the scenes could have been paintings. I'm thinking in particular of the one where the hero pets a stranger's dog in her car. The camera pans slowly at one point and we have an exquisite diagonal composition with one of the woman's eyes and cheeks and his profile, the two separated by the head of the dog, which he's sniffing and/or kissing.
I know the book has been hailed as a pioneering work of gay consciousness but I think it's quite universal, too.
Detail freaks will note the referencing of (or unconscious parallels with?) Paul Schrader's American Gigolo, most strikingly in the hero's clothes cupboard and car.
And much like Chuck Berry's 'C'est la Vie' in Pulp Fiction, Booker T and the MGs' 'Green Onions' will evoke Firth and Moore's groovy moves for many of us for years to come!
Different strokes, I suppose!

Edits: 03/05/10 03/05/10
RE: Saw Colin Firth in, "A Single Man," last night and I must say both the - patrickU 11:16:39 02/14/10 (0)
I love Firth.
Gay sympathy votes are the rule of the day. * - mr grits 21:42:00 02/13/10 (0)
.
Share a bowl of grits with someone you love tonight.

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