Settling in at a comfy metascore of 74 with about half the nation’s critics having seen it in limited release, A Single Man collects two more high scores, from The Onion and the LA Times (thanks j). Betsy Sharkey calls it a career-defining role for Colin Firth:
Center stage, of course, is Firth. Without him to provide the soul, all that saturated beauty would count for nothing. He holds George together with such care and breaks him apart just as carefully. One of many grace notes comes as he takes the call telling him of Jim’s accident. There is such stillness as the words hit him, as if to react would be to make it real.
…answers the question on many of our minds about Julianne Moore:
All in all, a very solid ensemble encircles Firth, though Moore is absolutely buoyant. A luscious lush, she oozes mod sophistication, despite the bouffant. She is just ahead of the feminist movement that saved many like her, so Valium, vodka and George’s friendship will have to do. Moore hasn’t had quite this much fun with a role in awhile — or so the slow twist to music and laughter would lead you to believe.
…and tops the review with special praise for director Tom Ford:
Fashion designer Tom Ford, who made a name as the glamour guy at Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and now with his own label, has constructed an impressive directing debut out of Christopher Isherwood’s dark novel. A character study is a good fit, giving Ford the chance to use what he knows about staging, which is considerable.
Reading Nathan Rabin’s review at The Onion A.V. Club, it’s damned hard to find what caused him to deduct half a letter-grade from a perfect score:
It’s the directorial debut of Tom Ford, a wildly successful fashion designer who luxuriates in impeccably composed images and unapologetic eroticism. It’s a film of stunning beauty and deep underlying sadness, a self-financed labor of love filled with impossibly gorgeous, oft-unclothed men and dazzling eye candy.
Naturally the bulk of the review is dedicated to more raves for Firth:
Firth only has a few scenes, all flashbacks, with Goode, yet Ford—who adapted Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel with co-screenwriter David Scearce—manages to create a central relationship of lived-in tenderness, comfort, and abiding love in spite of Goode’s limited screen time. It’s easy to see why Firth would be inconsolable at losing the wonderful life he built with his soulmate over 16 happy years, and not just because Goode, like everyone and everything else in the film, is so unconscionably attractive. A Single Man is a film of tremendous style wedded to real substance, and rooted in Firth’s affecting lead performance as a man trying to keep it together for one last day after his world has fallen apart.
