A man becomes unmoored when his much-idealized love dies senselessly and young. Using effective flashbacks to gradually reveal the relationship, Tom Ford paints a lovingly composed vision of beautiful suffering and the dangers of self-indulgence.
While Colin Firth's subtle internal modulations convey far more complexity than the elliptical and detail-stingy script, in the end the whole equals more than the sum of its parts. We see a life unfold and degrade before our eyes in painterly detail.