Final Rating: 3/5
An actor prepares for a new role while struggling with his own mortality in the director Ira Sachs 1980s-set The Man I Love.
Rami Malek stars as Jimmy George, a well-respected but mostly unsuccessful actor in New York’s underground theatre scene. Jimmy is a force of nature, commanding admiration from his family and peers, who flock to hear him speak about acting, or even just talk about his life. His charm and magnetism come with a feeling of invulnerability, however: Jimmy does what he wants, when he wants, without thinking much about consequences.
When Vincent (Luther Ford) moves into the same apartment building, he’s immediately smitten with Jimmy, and a carefree romance erupts between the two, to the chagrin of Jimmy’s boyfriend Dennis (Tom Sturridge). Unbeknownst to Vincent, Jimmy enters that romance in the aftermath of a lengthy battle with pneumonia that almost cost him his life.
Sachs frames Jimmy’s scenes voyeuristically, inviting the audience to inhabit the world with this larger-than-life character, rather than seeing it through his eyes. Malek’s tragic portrayal puts an entire spectrum of emotion on display, often without dialogue. Jimmy has gone through hell and emerged with an enviable support network but still is forced to face an imminent – but frustratingly uncertain – death.
He’s cagey with his backstory, preferring to spend his time singing, dancing, and acting, and as a result never betrays enough about his inner thoughts to make him predictable. The effect is a fascinating character who feels at once mysterious and as if the audience has known him for years.
Ford’s performance as Vincent bolsters Jimmy’s mystique. Vincent is the main perspective character, providing most of what we learn about Jimmy. The whirlwind romance between the two unfolds almost entirely physically – dancing in clubs, dropping by each others’ apartments, and the occasional late-night rendezvous.
Vincent doesn’t ask much about Jimmy’s life otherwise, the information he does get being meted out slowly and most often as he’s being chastised as a bad influence. He represents an escape for Jimmy, a chance to forget about his past and his illness.
In contrast to the other two, Sturridge as Dennis is consistently dire. He’s Jimmy’s caretaker, a job he takes great pride in, but which also tears him apart. Of everyone, Dennis most directly deals with the spectre of death, despite not being sick himself. He’s most at peace while sorting a menagerie of medications into Jimmy’s daily pill organizer, an activity which leaves him within moments of either bursting into tears or flying into a rage. Both of which he does when Vincent comes by to ask about Jimmy without a care in the world.
The Man I Love is an effective character study of a man on borrowed time, with his two lovers representing different approaches to spending that time. Though their roles are comparatively small, Vincent and Dennis provide plenty of conflict to make the trio compelling. Jimmy, meanwhile, inhabits the film like a ghost, moving from one scene to the next as if he was always supposed to be there.
When Jimmy is on screen, the rest of the world falls away. The filmmakers build this ethos into the cinematography, editing, and sound design as well. Jimmy is always the focus when he’s around. The voices of others around him often feel weightless; people asking him questions so mundane or giving him commands so immaterial that there’s hardly any point in hearing them in the first place. Sounds dampen when Jimmy’s around, people around him either blur, or only exist to react to him.
With the film so laser-focused on Jimmy, the overall story has trouble coming together. Jimmy is a fascinating guy, but his fate is sealed from the start. For all the texture that Vincent and Dennis add to his life, they function mostly as Jimmy’s appendages. A world with Jimmy at its centre must inevitably collapse, but for that collapse to be felt, it has to have been holding up something.
The Man I Love was seen during the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival.
