Firth's characterization and Ford's choices in the film do not rather cause a distraction between the grayness of grief and the colors of life, but rather juxtapose the vibrancy of life and love to the starkness of loss and death. This emphasis is especially true in a time and place where homosexuality is an invisible minority. We, the audience, see that George lives in a glass house but he and his sorrow are invisible to his neighbors, invisible to all but the few who choose to peek inside his enclave and into his soul. To the world, George is an ordinary man, but Firth and Ford hint to his exceptionality by the use of his impeccable dress, his attention to detail, and to his fury within his class room, where eventually when George opens up, his voice is loud and clear, even defiant. It is this fanfare of the common man that allows us to understand and empathize with George’s grief. We again get the chance to understand his sorrow when George opens up to Charley as she dismisses his love, and therefore, his grief, as a substitute for the real deal.
You may say that Ford’s work is flawed, especially if you view it as a formulaic drama built on the paradigms of a heterosexual perspective. I say, it is an exceptional work of art, worthy of the Academy Award because it shows a glimpse into the fervent world of George and his repressed passions. It shows the grayness of invisibility amid the colors of life and the sudden bursts of hopes and desires a gay man faces even today.
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