This time around, Tom Ford can not rely on the aesthetic magnanimity of the visual arts. As one of the leading modern fashion icons, he is certainly used to sending messages across runways and fashion shoots.

But we rarely see a visionary designer crossing over to the realm of men and women who are dressed for the part, but not necessarily for fashion week. And though he’s working with film heavyweights here (Julianne Moore, Colin Firth and upstart British actor Nicholas Hoult to be exact), Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man, now casts him as a newcomer in a field not his own.

With good reviews of his first feature-length film issuing from the Venice Film Festival, Ford may now be poised to take his salutary bow after a successful runway display. But the bravado of fashion may be a different personal experience from the sensitive thought processes of films altogether.

A Single Man, adapted from a novel by Christophe Isherwood, tackles the grief of middle-aged professor George Falconer (Firth) after the passing of his partner Jim (Matthew Goode). It’s one of those poignant films where nothing much happens except raw human emotions played out during an ordinary day in Southern California. But in the commonplace turn of events, Ford brilliantly guides his stellar cast with his designer’s vision for cinematography and the engagement of a creative director in getting the cast and crew to nail that vision.

Some had likened Ford’s sequences to the Wong Kar Wai approach. Visually, Ford is not likely to disappoint his art-house audiences. So too, with his unpretentious choice for a screenplay. You could sense that the voice of Ford in this movie lies as much in the visuals as in the inherent sensuality of the material. You suspect this movie, and whatever facts they may confirm about Ford’s personal ethos and experiences, is largely a reflection of the things that move the designer, rather than his desire to prove himself in an entirely different niche from the one he has already mastered.

The talented cast does not go to waste either. Colin Firth’s illustrious standing as one of Britain’s most sought-after actors panned a bit more attention to A Single Man. But his performance as a gay professor from the ’60s bespeaks a symbiosis with Ford’s own vision, that of a man reduced to pining for a lost love, yet goes about it in his usual delicate manner. It may not be the material of Hollywood’s blockbuster dreams, but it certainly lends more faith in the talent of Tom Ford.

When he left Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent as an indispensable creative director but a renegade among his former bosses, the designer’s influence had been somewhat unfairly written off. Or maybe, in automatic terms, he just did not have anywhere else at the time to exercise his innovative mind. His yearning for a new creative outlet would cost him $ 7 million financed out of his own pockets.

But as favorable reviews of A Single Man keep coming — considering it is not yet a commercial success — Ford might have reclaimed his influence in the often fickle world of the arts. $7 million may be quite an amount to pay for his two cents, but the beauty produced by it may just yield perpetuity for the designer / director. (Frances R)

Sources: New York Times, Frillr, Guardian