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The Year’s Best Gay Film Has Arrived

By Chris Carpenter

It has been four years since Brokeback Mountain touched the hearts of gay viewers, and many of us have been pining for another movie to reflect and evoke our experiences in an authentic way. Well, I’m happy to report the wait is over! A Single Man (released by The Weinstein Co.) opens on Dec. 11 in Los Angeles and will expand to Orange County and across the rest of the country on Dec. 25.
Colin Firth stars as George Falconer, a college literature professor grieving the loss of his lover, Jim (Matthew Goode, who played Ozymandias in Watchmen). Jim died eight months earlier in an automobile accident. The men met at the end of World War II and were happily together 16 years (the film is set in 1962).
Increasingly lonely and unable to function effectively without Jim, George resolves to end his life. The film follows George during the course of what is intended to be his last day. As he goes about getting his affairs in order and making other preparations for his suicide, we gain glimpses into George’s past — even George himself sees unexpected signs of hope for his future, should he choose not to kill himself.
We meet Charley (Julianne Moore), one of George’s lifelong friends who has a particular affection for Tanqueray gin (“I like the color of the bottle,” she tells George. “You like what’s inside it,” he replies.). Viewers are also introduced to one of George’s students, Kenny (Nicholas Hoult), whose own feelings for George develop during the course of the movie.
Based on gay writer Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel of the same title, A Single Man marks the screenwriting and directorial debuts of fashion designer Tom Ford. Ford’s eye for detail is evident throughout the film, from the fluctuating, photographic, color scheme to the amazing period props, cars and set pieces and, of course, the costumes (the exquisite fashions in the film were designed by Arianne Phillips). Indeed, A Single Man is the most authentically detailed, period film since 2002’s Far From Heaven, which also starred Moore and was written and directed by out filmmaker Todd Haynes.
I can’t say enough about how good A Single Man is in terms of its artistry and depiction of homosexual life in the 1960s. Not only is it one of the best gay-themed films of 2009 (along with Little Ashes), but I dare say it is one of the best ever. While the gay characters are wisely closeted for the era, they are far from the self-loathing homosexuals of many queer-centric movies of the past, including Brokeback Mountain.
George and Jim are fully accepting of themselves and are unapologetically gay, in spite of Jim’s parents’ condemnation of their relationship, as well as a straight neighbor’s assertion that the people next door are “light in their loafers.” George delivers a powerful, impromptu lecture to his students on how social minorities are the victims of the majority’s fear. He doesn’t specifically mention homosexuals among the minorities he lists; his point is so strong and truthful that he doesn’t need to for his listeners to get the point.
A Single Man is also undeniably erotic. Firth and Goode have romantic and sexual chemistry to spare between them, and Hoult does a striptease for George during the film’s surprising climax. All three actors show plenty of skin in the film, but Ford presents the nudity artfully, which makes it all the sexier in my opinion. I would be remiss if I didn’t note the incredibly sexy Jon Kortajarena as a James Dean-esque hustler who tries to pick up George.
The film may traffic in dark themes and issues of mortality, loss, loneliness, oppression and suicide, but it certainly isn’t humorless. Ford, co-writer David Scearce and Isherwood infuse George’s plight with unexpected wit devoid of bad taste.
Firth (who played gay in 2008’s Mamma Mia!) is emerging as a likely Oscar contender for his performance as George. He has won the Best Actor award at this year’s Venice Film Festival, and it would be the British actor’s first nomination for an Academy Award.