I texted a friend to say my husband was going to be away at the weekend and informing her that ‘I fancy seeing a single man’. Strangely she got the idea I was having an affair. Things like that can put bad thoughts in the head of good women let me tell you, especially where Colin Firth is concerned.
What I’d meant to say, but texting capital letters is beyond me, was that I wanted to see the new Tom Ford film, A Single Man. It’s based on the 1962 Christopher Isherwood novel set in L.A. depicting the last day in the life of a man (George, played by Firth) struggling to cope after the sudden death of his long term partner Jim (Matthew Goode).
I went along to see it with two single friends, one straight, one gay, and found it to be an utterly extraordinary film. It is so beautifully shot and styled it made me want to cry even before the tragedy unfolds. George and Jim had been lovers for seventeen years, and when news comes that Jim (and their beloved dogs) have been killed in a car accident in Denver, where he was visiting his family, George has the additional, and at that time all too common, horror to bear that he is not invited, or welcome, to see to body or attend the funeral, and their relationship is never going to be acknowledged by the family.
So it’s a sad, sorry, painful story brilliantly told. And I found it genuinely powerful and moving.
But..
The film begins and end with a naked Firth floating through water. We also gets several doses of a disturbingly beautiful Nicholas Hoult (playing Kenny, a student of George’s from U.C.L.A who has a crush on him) naked.
I suspect Firth did some gym work to play the role, because those sharp early sixties suits are unforgiving and fit him very nicely thank you. It’s quite enough to make a person of either gender, single, married, straight or gay, come over really quite peculiar and in need of a steadying slap round the chops.
The clever Mad Men people have styled the film, and it is staggeringly, breathtakingly well done. And Firth isn’t just fit, he also acts his elegant socks off. There were moments when his attention got focussed on a tiny detail, like his secretary’s perfume, when I could have sworn I could smell it too.
Didn’t like him in Bridget Jones. Pride and Prejudice was great but the wet shirt scene has become a cliche. He has been really very good in a number of things, and was nothing short of glorious in Another Country as a mere young pup.
Someone who is still a young pup, Nicholas Hoult, acts very well too. If he grows up to be as talented as Firth, I’d say, shirt or wet shirt, trousers or no trousers, he should be very proud.
Posted by Inkface
HOLBY CITY BEHIND THE SCREEN
pauseliveaction 
Colin Firth, no, never, whether wet or dry or naked or dressed. Just no.
Nicholas Hoult – yes.
Both of them, thanks, and don’t forget to leave a note out for extra milk for the morning.
I agree with you on everything, Inkface, except for your Colin-in-Bridget-Jones antipathy. When she makes that rubbish meal with blue soup, and he looks at her across the table with such tenderness, I swear, I could just sob.
It’s that posh, stiff upper lip schtick I can’t stand.
OMG that nichoas Hoult is, like, so HOTTT!
I love Colin Firth in anything! His wife is a lucky lady.