77
Metascore
35 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 91Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanEntertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanFirth plays him as a man of his time who is also mournfully ahead of his time. He's addicted to his own broken heart. A Single Man may break yours as well.
- 90TimeRichard CorlissTimeRichard CorlissTom Ford -- the Texas-born fashion designer who for a decade was the creative director at Gucci -- financed this first feature himself. The producer couldn't have hired a smarter director.
- 90VarietyVarietyLike the speck of sand that seeds a pearl, it’s the tiny fleck of kitsch at the heart of “A Single Man” that makes it luminous and treasurable, despite its imperfections.
- 88Rolling StonePeter TraversRolling StonePeter TraversThe film belongs to Firth. Uncanny at showing the heart crumbling under George's elegant exterior, he gives the performance of his career.
- 80NewsweekDavid AnsenNewsweekDavid AnsenA Single Man's sleek surface may go against Isherwood's crisp, understated prose, yet the story's beating, wounded heart and its spiky intelligence still come through, personified in Firth's moving, eloquently internalized performance.
- 80The Hollywood ReporterThe Hollywood ReporterSensitive and stylish.
- 63ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliA Single Man tells us about love, isolation, and sorrow, but never makes us feel any of those things.
- 60SalonStephanie ZacharekSalonStephanie ZacharekIt doesn't matter if the movie around Firth is a good one or a lousy one: Either way, I wouldn't be able to explain how an actor could come up with a performance as subtle, in both its heartbreak and its magnificence, as this one is.
- 50Village VoiceVillage VoiceA Single Man, with one significant exception, gives us only a series of immaculate poses. The exception is Firth, who, in spite of Ford's best efforts to turn him, too, into another piece of movable scenery, manages to convey a real human soul stirring beneath George's petrified façade
- 20Time OutKeith UhlichTime OutKeith UhlichChristopher Isherwood’s seminal queer novel deserves a film adaptation that captures both its sense of place and its activist spirit. Cowriter-director Tom Ford settles for the glossy ephemera of a Vanity Fair cover spread.