A Single Man
This film stars Colin Firth as a man who had lost the love of his life Jim and how he is trying to cope with it, is absolutely nothing like what I had expected from a film with such heavy material to be. It was beautiful, tender, tasteful and did I mention absolutely beautiful?
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In this film there are many things that I was skeptical of going in because of what popular media feeds you in this day and age, but I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong about most of my assumptions. I especially love the way they handled the fact that the story was about a man who was going through excruciating loss and despair and felt like he had no place left to go except the grave to be reunited with the love of his life, who happens to be a man. In this film, being gay is not the centerpiece of the film and it does not scream to the audience to give all your attention to this small detail. I find this tasteful because there are too many movies with men and women who are gay and the main plot point is the fact that they are gay and that drives the entire movie. Don’t get me wrong, I love movies produced by the LGBTQ+ community and I honestly cannot get enough of them, but it is refreshing to see a man already many years after his coming of age story, falling in love and then dealing with loss because of an accident rather than an angry man so insecure about himself he has to put others down to feel any sense of belonging.
This story also includes aspects of psychology, which to me is very interesting because I am a psychology major in Uni. In psychology, it is a fact that when you remember things from your past, it is fragmented and most of the time you can only recollect snapshots of your past, almost like your brain is a huge photo album with maybe a few Gifs running around. This film implements this element of psychology beautifully which can be seen right from the first scene where Firth’s character is approaching a wrecked car with his lover Jim dead next to it. The scene is set up as though Firth is stepping into a paused moment in time, as though it is frozen and Firth is the only one walking around, which is similar to the snapshot of memories because Firth constructed this image in his mind of Jim’s death. This can also be seen with any flashback, which most are short, little dialogue and colorful to an extent. Another aspect is the scenes of Firth floating in red, murky water when scenes of his despair come on screen because that represents very plainly that he feels as though he is drowning. This image of a man drowning in his own mind is shocking, beautiful and serene. I felt so many emotions every time it would come across the screen and its as if I could feel Firth’s anger, sadness and longing to be with the one he loved.
This movie was also about death and loss. The whole movie was set in a single day and the fact that eventually, this day would come to an end whether it be because of nature, man or simple sleep. Dear reader, that is for you to figure out, but I will say that the ending leaves you with many questions about your own life and how if death comes knocking or you go searching for him, will you like what you contributed to the world and if there is such thing as fate. I belive in fate, and as cheesy as it sounds, you stumbled across this article if you can bare to read this much of my terrible writing, then it is in your best fate to view this magnificent and beautiful film, A Single Man.
