In his first feature film, Ford uses his own history with the photographic image to tell a story both historical and bracingly contemporary. In Southern California in the early sixties, we meet George Falconer (Colin Firth), a gay college professor, as he learns that his lover Jim (Matthew Goode) has died in a car wreck. Grief overwhelms him, and his “invisible status” in society begins to close in again. Suicide seems the best way out. But a mad night with Charley (Julianne Moore), and the unexpected attentions of an angora-sweatered young man make George think twice. Ford seems to gently insist that the rich and complex personal histories of gay men, from any age, must be part of the political calculations of our time. Told largely through flashback and featuring alarmingly precise attention to period detail in furniture, costume and architecture. Nominated for an Oscar.