A Single Man (2009)

* *

A stylised, artsy, indie (honestly not my favourite genre). Colin Firth is a perfect choice for this dapper character and he is supported by a strong cast. There is little to say about the film as little happened, Firth’s boyfriend dies and then he struggles with it. It is typical Oscar-fodder, it wasn’t created for the everyday person to watch (and the everyday person would not want to watch this as it’s slightly boring).

It’s classed as a drama but it is not overly dramatic; the story just slowly progresses from human interaction to human interaction and you are introduced to a few damaged and philosophising characters. I found a quote from Tom Ford (the director):  ‘If you spend an hour and a half in a movie theatre, it should challenge you.’ This shows how this film turned out how it did, I attempted to challenge its audience, unfortunately I do not feel it challenged anyone.

In today’s film-watching society often every film is expected to have laughs and explosions in an attempt to maintain the audience’s interest for 2 hours. This film has neither of these and instead has long scenes of pointless artistry which seem to just be the director’s attempt to show how he is creating a slightly avant-garde film. I find these types of slow films pretentious as pointless; I am constantly waiting for something to happen.