For a contemplative art film about the AIDS era, Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love has caused quite a bit of chatter among critics and social media users well in advance of awards season.
First, the period film — which stars Rami Malek and Tom Sturridge as romantic partners — made headlines because of the exit of its intended lead, Sachs muse Ben Whishaw. Since then, thanks to the music-filled drama’s very successful premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, the conversation has turned to the title’s merit and its potential to woo audiences come late summer or fall.
Here’s what to know about the buzz surrounding The Man I Love and when you might be able to see the film in theaters.
What is ‘The Man I Love’ about?
The Man I Love, co-written by Sachs and regular collaborator Mauricio Zacharias, stars Malek as Jimmy George, a downtown performance artist who has developed a following in 1980s New York.
The period piece focuses on a specific moment in Jimmy’s too-short life, after he’s already accepted his imminent death from AIDS and before he’s fully succumbed to the disease. Jimmy finds himself in this moment open to possibility and staging various farewell performances, both on and off the stage.
A curtain call of sorts, Jimmy has an affair with his young downstairs neighbor, Vincent (newcomer Luther Ford), further disrupting his already strained dynamic with his partner Dennis (The Sandman star Sturridge). Meanwhile, Jimmy’s other relationships, like with his sister and brother-in-law (Rebecca Hall and Ebon Moss-Bachrach), are also splintering under the weight of his deterioration. And yet, the film invites its characters and audience to celebrate the performer’s efforts to enjoy life while he can and take a few final bows.
In The Man I Love, the Passages and Peter Hujar’s Day director once again shows that he can deliver an affecting and absorbing period piece, as well as a devastating love triangle. The film’s colorful, theatrical world orchestrated by a singing Malek does feel like something new for Sachs — who has been making beloved queer indie films for decades — but it’s also very much the kind of romantic contemplation of life and love we’ve come to expect from the Keep the Lights On director.
As usual there’s an autobiographical aspect to the film, which draws on the director’s time as a young artist in 1980s and ‘90s New York. Above all, there’s an interest in art, both in making it and exploring its impact on everyday life, rather than courting commercial success.
Is this Rami Malek’s career-best performance?
It’s been a while since Malek, whose more recent films include Oppenheimer and No Time to Die, has lent his talents to an indie project. But at a press conference following The Man I Love’s world premiere, the Oscar-winning Bohemian Rhapsody star said that he had been eager to work with Sachs for some time and his enthusiasm for the director won out over other concerns — including how taking another role as a singer dying of AIDS might look.
“At first, when I read the script, I said, ‘I can’t do this. There’s too many similarities. It could be problematic,’” Malek said at the press conference, referring to similarities between Freddie Mercury and the film’s fictional protagonist. “There was a certain sense of fear. And I started to really think about what I was afraid of. Was it the similarities? Was it the singing? Was it, obviously, what was going on in the period?"
“I knew I had to address the fear. If there’s anything Freddie taught me, it was: address the fear,” Malek said, adding that he decided to trust Sachs because the director makes "unique cinema unlike any other."
“I knew I was in extraordinary hands, and that if he [Sachs] was choosing me, I could rely on him — not only to depend on him throughout the film, but to elevate it, to push myself, to force myself to race into that fire. And when I raced into it, I started to discover that these were men that were similar, but they were also worlds apart.”
Malek’s confidence in Sachs certainly paid off, given that he and the film received a standing ovation at Cannes that went on anywhere from 8 to 10 minutes — depending on the account — and left the actor in tears. Since then, numerous critics have deemed The Man I Love Malek’s career-best performance, showcasing a more subtle side to the actor who has regularly played bombastic types.
In addition to putting aside his concerns about attracting backlash, it took a bit of luck for Malek to end up in perhaps the least commercial film of his career. The role of Jimmy was originally intended for Whishaw, who starred in both Passages and Peter Hujar’s Day, and Malek wasn’t even a shoe-in to replace him once it was freed up. But Sachs, who hadn’t seen Bohemian Rhapsody, signed the actor after watching just a few minutes of him in the Emmy-winning series Mr. Robot.
“This actually wasn’t a given,” Malek told The Hollywood Reporter of getting cast in the film, which Sachs said feels “dangerous” because of the star. “Ira was essentially seeing if I was the right guy for it…. I don’t think I’m ever the obvious choice, to be quite frank, and I think that’s nice. I choose quite carefully and this felt like a very big risk worth taking. And to that, it’s a film about people who create and what that costs.”
Malek wasn’t the only one basking in acclaim at Cannes when The Man I Love was met by audiences with resounding applause. Following the standing ovation at the film’s premiere, a proud Sachs was handed the mic and began by thanking the room, saying “Well, this is a really nice night.”
“This is a film about what we can bring to each other, through art, through love, through pain, through memory, and I hope there are some memories we share for this evening, for this festival, and for our love of cinema, really. This is the place where we can do that together,” Sachs continued, addressing the audience. “None of us will be here forever, just to say. But there are moments that we will remember, and I tried with this movie, with this incredible cast, to fill this movie with things that I want to remember. This night will be added to that.”
Sachs hasn’t always enjoyed such a warm reception at Cannes. The last time the American auteur premiered a film at the sunny French festival — 2019’s Frankie, starring Isabelle Huppert — the response was much more mixed, likely contributing to the fact that he premiered his next two at Sundance. (The festival founded by Robert Redford has been a regular first stop for Sachs’ works since his debut feature, 1996’s The Delta, showed there.) But The Man I Love clearly wooed audiences at the glamorous international affair, and positive reviews have been rolling in since.
How and when can you watch ‘The Man I Love’?
Ahead of The Man I Love showing at Cannes, MK2 Films (Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent) boarded the film to handle international sales, with WME Independent repping North America. The film is still looking for U.S. distribution, though, so no release date has been set.
Following Cannes, there are plenty of opportunities for other festivals to show Sachs’ latest, but that’ll depend on the rollout strategy and how much stamina its stars and director have for red carpet screenings. Both of the director’s last two films visited a handful of festivals before releasing in the late summer and fall, so it’s reasonable to think that The Man I Love will do the same.
Although Sachs isn’t the type of director to worry too much about awards season, his films tend to do particularly well at the Independent Spirit Awards, and with Malek’s tendency to court voting audiences, it may attract an unusual amount of nominations come end of year.
Until the film, which is a co-production of Big Creek Projects and France’s SBS and executive produced by Halsey, makes its way to theaters, you can get a taste of Malek’s performance in the first-look clip above. And expect more snippets and a full trailer to release soon.
