A SINGLE MAN 3.0*** (almost 3.5***)

The story takes place over the course of just one day (and night) – November 30, 1962 -- in the life of handsome, middle-aged college professor George (Colin Firth). Like his friend, neighbor and one-time lover Charley (Julianne Moore), George is an English transplant living in LA. He has a good job and a well-appointed home on a picture-perfect suburban street. But since the death of his long-term lover Joe a few months earlier, George has been heavily grieving inside and just going through the motions day after awful day without Joe. Now today it appears that he is putting his affairs in order, with a view toward ending it all.

Colin Firth in the lead role is a revelation. As George's day unfolds, a series of reveries -- erotic, nostalgic, humorous and sad -- reveal the man behind the carefully suited and mannered exterior. Whether observing his neighbors, lavishing praise on a secretary, or enduring a discourse on bomb shelters from a colleague , Firth shows a welcome lightness of touch. He's tender and tolerant as Julianne Moore, in a gin-induced state, berates him for his not being the man she needs. And his obsessive-compulsive fumbling with a gun and a sleeping bag are hilarious Colin Firth should get an Oscar nomination and possibly even the Oscar. It is hard to pull off what he did. And he did it perfectly. And, Julianne Moore is excellent as she expertly conveys the fragility and hopelessness of a woman once married and once feted for her good looks, who is now staring into the abyss through the bottom of a bottle of gin.

This is a story about the essence of attachment and love. The gender of the leading character, that he is gay, does matter because this is 1962, but, even so, it is not the main issue. It’s the sixteen years of love, intimacy, and the coming together and uniting of two soul mates. It is believed by some that when one swan dies, its mate flies very high and then plunges to its death. If such is true, then the heart of this story is about that same kind of devotion and love.

Clark