Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

CP: I was excited to see "A Single Man." Finally, a movie based on a novel by the great Christopher Isherwood. But it was directed by Tom Ford, so I feared the worst.

RN: What were you expecting, spritzes of woody Tom Ford for Men cologne in Scentsurround? Or a plot-stopping mid-movie fashion show, a la George Cukor's "The Women"?

CP: I figured the fashionista-turned-filmmaker might make a 90-minute perfume ad, a vanity picture focused more on grooming and gowns than a day in the life of grieving middle-aged gay professor George Falconer. While the movie does have some of that Gucci-fueled obsession with fashion -- Savile Row suits on a community-college professor? -- it has two secret weapons: original music by Abel Korzeniowski, and British actor Colin Firth.

RN: Ford, a first-time director, pulled career-defining performances out of his cast, including Julianne Moore. She spends no more than 10 minutes onscreen but makes a wallop of an impression. That gravity-defying coiffure of hers is total Oscar bait.

CP: Love her, loved her hair. It soars, dips and loops like Frank Gehry's Disney Hall. And her character, Charley, redefines "dressing for dinner" when she puts on a vintage floor-length black-and-white dress with a Watteau back. I was going to call it a cape, but Google corrected moi. Are you recommending this movie? Do you hope Firth gets an Oscar?

RN: Yes and yes. The set direction should tempt the nominators, as well. The mid-century California cottage that Firth's character lives in -- designed, presumably, by his architect boyfriend, played with dimpled perfection by the dipped-in-honey Matthew Goode -- is going to be the most coveted movie domicile since Diane Keaton's Hamptons getaway in "Something's Gotta Give."

CP: I'd be a wreck, too, if I lost Matthew Goode as the bf. Hi.

RN: Totally. As the Isherwood aficionado, do you think the script did him justice?

CP: It departs from the book in one crucial plot point. And the movie is a tear-jerker in a way I don't recall when I first read "A Single Man."

RN: Hey, waterworks, I was seated next to you, remember? I think you emptied an economy-sized box of Puffs Plus.

CP: Uh huh. But the movie hits the book's tone just right. Isherwood said that in writing, tone is paramount, so Ford's faithfulness on that point seems most important.

RN: I imagine the book's content was a shocker in 1964.

CP: Definitely. Some mainstream critics recoiled in disgust at its subject matter: "queers." That response would have pleased Isherwood, I bet. If societal approval mattered to him, he would not have spent 30-odd years with a partner 30 years his junior.

RN: By today's standards this story would barely rate a midweek plotline on "One Life to Live." Progress, right?

CP: Let's hope we've moved ahead in 45 years.

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com.

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