An English professor, one year after the sudden death of his boyfriend, is unable to cope with his typical days in 1960s Los Angeles.An English professor, one year after the sudden death of his boyfriend, is unable to cope with his typical days in 1960s Los Angeles.An English professor, one year after the sudden death of his boyfriend, is unable to cope with his typical days in 1960s Los Angeles.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 39 wins & 59 nominations total
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaOn February 21, 2010, when he won a BAFTA for Best Actor, Colin Firth's list of people to thank included the man who repaired his refrigerator. Firth explained that he'd decided to turn down the part, and had an email to director Tom Ford in his outbox, waiting to be sent. Then a man arrived to repair his refrigerator, and Firth had time to reconsider.
- GoofsGeorge spends several minutes deciding how best to kill himself, yet the clock on the bedside table doesn't change.
- Quotes
George: [last lines; voiceover] A few times in my life I've had moments of absolute clarity, when for a few brief seconds the silence drowns out the noise and I can feel rather than think, and things seem so sharp. And the world seems so fresh as though it had all just come into existence. I can never make these moments last. I cling to them, but like everything, they fade. I have lived my life on these moments. They pull me back to the present, and I realize that everything is exactly the way it was meant to be.
- Crazy creditsThe production company, Fade to Black, is displayed in the opening, shown in white lettering outlined against a white background. It fades to white.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Rotten Tomatoes Show: 2012/The Messenger/Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
- SoundtracksLe Serpent qui Danse
Lyrics by Charles Baudelaire
Music by Serge Gainsbourg
Performed by Serge Gainsbourg
Courtesy of Mercury France
Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
The action takes place over the course of just one day (and night) -- 30 November 1962 -- in the life of handsome, middle-aged college professor George (Colin Firth). Like his friend, neighbour and one-time lover Charley (Julianne Moore), George is an expat in LA. He has a good job and a well-appointed home in a picture-perfect suburban street, but since the death of his long-term lover Joe (Matthew Goode) a few months earlier, George has been going through the motions. Now today it appears that he is putting his affairs in order, with a view to ending it all.
I must confess that I never swooned over Colin Firth's Mr Darcy back in the 90s and I've found it increasingly hard to relate to the repressed, lovelorn and frankly lumpen Englishmen he often plays. But here he's a revelation. As George's day unfolds, a series of reveries -- erotic, nostalgic, humorous and sad -- reveal the man behind the immaculately suited exterior. Whether perched on the loo wryly observing his neighbours, lavishing praise on a bemused secretary, or enduring a discourse on bomb shelters from a colleague (Lee Pace), Firth shows a welcome lightness of touch. He's tender and tolerant as Moore's gin-sodden hostess berates him for his inability to be the (heterosexual) man she needs. And his obsessive-compulsive fumbling with a gun and a sleeping bag are hilarious.
Moore expertly conveys the fragility and hopelessness of a woman once married and once feted for her looks, who is now staring into the abyss through the bottom of a bottle of Tanqueray's. It reminded me of some of her best work -- in Safe, Boogie Nights and The Hours -- and made me wish she'd stop wasting her talent playing second fiddle to the likes of Nicolas Cage and Samuel L Jackson.
It's a film in which the camera restlessly prowls in search of physical perfection: in the well-tended gardens of George's neighbourhood; the piercing blue eyes of flirtatious student Kenny (Nicholas Hoult); and the chiselled looks of Goode's doomed lover. But the script, co-written by Ford and David Scearce, ensures that this never descends into pastiche or glossy melodrama.
- susannah-straughan-1
- Oct 17, 2009
- Permalink
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official site
- Languages
- Also known as
- Yolg'iz odam
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $7,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $9,176,000
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $217,332
- Dec 13, 2009
- Gross worldwide
- $24,964,890
- Runtime1 hour 39 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1