The Man I Love movie review: The 80s in NYC was a scene, man. If you’re of a certain vintage, you may have actually heard this line — from the know-it-all seniors when you arrived in any liberal arts college in Delhi University as a newbie, those exalted beings who smoked Charminars and wore drainpipe jeans and floppy hair and big Beatles glasses who were, in hindsight, probably spouting received wisdom.
There are no such gaps between perception and knowing in Ira Sachs’ marvellous re-creation of that very specific Reagan era in ‘The Man I Love’, which brings alive the sights and sounds of the city with the kind of pulsating energy that can come only from someone who has lived through it.
This was the decade after the flower children of the 70s, and Woodstock, had grown into adults who had to find work to pay their bills, but where a fresh band of the young and restless found themselves at the centre of a thriving gay movement which was at the time more visible and more vocal than anywhere else in America.
And his vision is carried through by Rami Malek playing Downtown musician Jimmy George, who sees his death coming, but refuses to get fazed by it, while never hiding from it. He lives with his partner Dennis (Tom Sturridge) who has the unenviable job of caring for him; he also has a quick little fling with British lad Vincent (Luther Ford), who literally flings himself at Jimmy.
Tom Sturridge, Rami Malek and Luther Ford during the ovation for Ira Sachs film The Man I Love 👏 #Cannes
Via @DEADLINE pic.twitter.com/SM1H5XkjDf
— Tom Sturridge UK (@TomSturridgeUK) May 20, 2026
Jimmy’s immediate family, sister Brenda (Rebecca Hall) and brother-in-law Gene (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) are at hand when he returns from hospital after a near-fatal bout of pneumonia; Jimmy’s parents are far more disapproving of his orientation and lifestyle. It’s the clash of generations that’s natural, but it’s probably what accounts for Jimmy’s motherless look: Malek builds Jimmy up with delicate strokes, which leans into his queer identity, but also never loses sight of his personhood.
The last time Sachs competed for the Palme d’Or was in 2019 with ‘Frankie’. The American director, best known in indie circles for his tightly-knit dramas, has been most prolific in the past couple of years, with a film each in Venice (Passages) and Sundance (Peter Hujar’s Day). But this Cannes competition entry has gone right to the top of his own filmography, and amongst this critic’s favourite entries this year.
There’s a scene in which Sachs, who has co-written this ‘most personal’ film with long-time collaborator Mauricio Zacharias, mining many of the details from his own memory, gets a room full people to sing. That’s all they do, sing: each one, when their turn comes, turning to their song; it’s like any other post-dinner sing-song that you may across, but the sequence is one of piercing beauty, as the camera holds each singer, and their voice, in regard: those people aren’t doing it to sound perfect; they are just making an evening richer and better.
They tell us who they are through the act of singing, and the choice of song.
There have innumerable movies on gay characters afflicted with AIDS in cinema from around the world, from the 1993 Philadelphia to the 1995 My Brother Nikhil. But many of the beats of ‘The Man I Love’ remind me of one of the best literary accounts of that ‘wild’ time in New York, captured by Allan Gurganus’s terrific account of three friends facing a full-blown AIDS crisis in ‘Plays Well With Others’.
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Malek’s Jimmy may remind you of his Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody, the 2018 bio pic of the Queen lead singer. But Sachs’s spare yet lush style — which makes New York apartments look both grungy and attractive — imparts a leaner, more knowing look to his lead character, whose muted flamboyance remains unwavering even in the face of his impending mortality. Malek won an Oscar then, and I won’t be surprised if this turn garners him more prizes.
But for now, this film will have to do.
The Man I Love movie cast: Rami Malek, Tom Sturridge, Rebecca Hall, Ebon Moss-Bachrach
The Man I Love movie director: Ira Sachs
The Man I Love movie rating: 4 stars
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