Los Angeles, 1962. George Falconer, a British professor of English literature at a California university, has decided today will be the last day of his life. His partner of sixteen years, Jim (Matthew Goode), was killed in a car accident eight months ago. George has set his affairs in order with meticulous precision — settling his bills, writing his letters, selecting the right clothes to die in.
The film follows him through a single day: teaching his students, lunching with his oldest friend Charley (Julianne Moore), encountering a luminous young student (Nicholas Hoult) who seems to see through him entirely.
Tom Ford’s directorial debut, based on Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novel, is a film of extraordinary visual beauty — each frame composed like a fashion photograph, the world’s colours saturating and draining as George’s will to live flickers. The performance is one of the finest of Colin Firth’s career: interior, precise, devastating.