I can’t imagine the Negev desert being any drier than the humor in the Coen brothers’ A Serious Man. Oh, sorry. Wrong review. This film is A Single Man, also taking place in the 60s and also about a very serious man. This time it’s George Falconer (Colin Firth) as an English-born Los Angeles college professor. Julianne Moore is in it, but, sadly, that’s where any similarity to any particular Coen brothers’ movie ends.
The previews said it was a film about a man “reeling from the recent death of his lover of 16 years.” What the previews failed to mention was that the lover was also a man. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just that films about homosexual love leave me feeling indifferent. I harbor no animosity towards gays (I would happily be one if I was a woman), but it’s simply difficult for me to relate. A Single Man, directed by Tom Ford (a fashion designer by trade, I am informed), doesn’t make it any easier, nor does it try to. There are scenes of naked male skin in slow motion, done at particular points along the way that I am sure were attempts to make me somehow better relate to the pain, suicidal in its extent, that Falconer was feeling, not just from the loss of his lover, but from the isolation that he was no doubt feeling from being a homosexual in a much less accepting period of time. It didn’t work. Nor did the flashback scenes of him snuggling on a sofa with his lover. Love, of course, can transcend sexual orientation and so I was not without sympathy for Firth’s character. It’s just that it would have been more interesting for me, more relatable, had the love been a heterosexual one. But then, of course, you would have none of the social complexities inherent in a relationship taking place back at a time when it had to be kept secret. Falconer wasn’t even allowed at his lover’s funeral. The story, above all else perhaps, is one about alienation, (and hence the title).
Okay, so far so good. I can go along with a movie about alienation. Unfortunately, by the time it wrapped up, I was feeling alienated, too. Mainly from any interest I had in the film. There was a certain art to it – it was a kind of stream-of-consciousness thing taking place over the course of a single day, with lots of flashbacks and imaginary scenes and mood music – but the art couldn’t compensate for the plot, nor the terrible, terrible ending. There were moments of hope and deliverance for Falconer, all of which were lost in a meaningless, existentialist conclusion that I would be concerned about spoiling were it not for the fact that if you bother to watch this film in spite of my warning against it, you deserve a spoiled ending. It’s a sign of the times, of course; certain movies, I have noticed, are going out of their way to make the point that there is no point. I can’t help but wonder if Ford consulted with the Coens because parallels were obvious between A Serious Man and A Single Man that went beyond merely the titles. Someday, perhaps, they’ll make a movie about this reviewer entitled A Simple Man, because surely that description must explain my general dislike for this new genre.
Still, I think there’s a way to do it effectively, even in a sort of ironic thought-provoking way. The Coens did just that. Ford did not. Watch the movies back to back. Start with A Serious Man and then…actually, do yourself a favor and stop right there
3/10
