Mark Smith reflects on the sinister straightening out of Tom Ford's A Single Man.

Like its literary inspiration, Tom Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man, released this month, charts 24 hours in the grief-shot life of George (Colin Firth), an English don at a Californian university, who is struggling to cope in the aftermath of the sudden death of his lover Jim (Matthew Goode).

George is tormented by his urges; rage at the bovine incomprehension of his neighbours, animal lust at the sight of shirtless tennis players sweating it out on campus, and a chance meeting with a pretty student (Nicholas Hoult) for whom George has been nursing a crush, which leads to tipsy skinny-dipping and a surprise resolution.

As I skim the embossed, doorstopper of a press pack for the film, I sense that something is missing. A Single Man is the most significant gay love story since Brokeback Mountain. Yet, weirdly, in the lavish, Ford-designed opus of PR bumpf before me, detailing everything from gushy cast biographies to the production’s water tank provider, the term ‘gay’ is used only once. And, when it comes, it’s in the form of a blunt denial: “While the hero of the story is gay, Ford points out that the film transcends sexuality.”

Later in the same document, Ford reiterates his apology for his source material and its subject matter, insisting that A Single Man “would be the same story if it was George’s wife, instead of his partner, who had died.” This is a fat, flaming lie.

The central fact of George’s homosexuality is integral to A Single Man and its power as art, both in book and in film form. In the former, Isherwood’s narrative gives subtle insights into George’s seething resentment at the fact that, in 1960s suburbia, his is the grief that dare not speak its name.

In the film, George is denied the opportunity of attending his lover’s funeral, and even his closest friend (Julianne Moore, as gin-sodden Charley) is unable to appreciate the enormity of what George has lost, dismissing the relationship with Jim as a ‘substitute’ for the love of a good woman. No wonder he’s suicidal.

Ford, in his capacity as one of the most prolific gay image-makers of the past two decades, has never been one to knowingly underplay the homoerotic potential in any scenario. This is a man whose ad campaigns have featured towel-flicking boxers and bottles of cologne wedged between male models’ buttocks. And, although it’s less crude than his usual billboard-beefcake shtick, A Single Man is, visually speaking, as gay as a window.

The camera’s attention, and by association that of George, lingers on the male form with frustrated reverence. To say that its protagonist might as well be straight is about as useful as suggesting that the racial profile of Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing is entirely incidental, that it might as well have been set in an all-white boarding school.

Clearly there’s a disconnect between what Ford chooses to say about his film, and what his film wants to say. Yes, forbidden love has been a staple of mainstream entertainment since Juliet was doodling hearts on her pencil case, but the experience of having to conceal one’s relationships (and one’s grief when a relationship ends) for fear of the consequences, has been a fact of gay life since time immemorial. Love may be a universal, but the ability to parade it around at the local supermarket is not.

Ford knows this, and the very sincerity of his work in A Single Man reveals his ‘gay, moi?’ protestations to be disingenuous. But, despite the career change, he remains the consummate marketing man. He knows that, in fragrance as in film, the success of a product depends on it finding the broadest possible customer base. The gays are a given; many would pay their dollars at the box office to see him direct an old lady across the road. To hit serious pay dirt, he must sanitise his film in the minds of even the most conservative potential moviegoers.

That’s certainly the message I get from the film’s promotional materials, all designed personally by Ford. The poster depicts Firth and Moore splayed on a bed, in what could be (mis)taken for post-coital languor. More disturbingly, the online version of the trailer has had its (already brief) instances of gay kissing excised, and likewise seems to imply a sexual relationship between leading man and leading lady that simply isn’t there in the film.

Should we be losing sleep over this? After all, isn’t it more important for one bigot to be lured – albeit under false pretences – into seeing this fine movie, which is about the fundamental validity of gay emotion, than any number of well-meaning liberals? Maybe. And yet the idea that a gay storyline needs to be concealed from its potential audience is pretty unpalatable in itself.

A Single Man is released on March 11.