★★★½ (3.5 out of 5 stars)
When someone is diagnosed with a terminal illness, it can easily become the only thing others see. Their personality, work, relationships, flaws, and everything they have accomplished are suddenly pushed aside. Ira Sachs’ The Man I Love refuses to look at its protagonist that way.
Set in 1980s New York, the film follows Jimmy, played by Rami Malek, an actor and performance artist living with AIDS. His diagnosis is central to the story, but Sachs is less interested in making a conventional film about sickness than in showing us how Jimmy chose to spend the time he had left.
After being released from the hospital, Jimmy says he feels more alive than ever. He directs that energy toward a starring role in a theatrical adaptation of a work by Québécois playwright Michel Tremblay. The movie lingers on rehearsals, spontaneous performances, dinners, and conversations among artists. Through those ordinary moments, it captures a specific creative community and the comfort its members find in one another.
Sachs does not seem determined to create a grand masterpiece designed to manipulate the audience emotionally. His approach is calm, natural, and deeply human. He presents the life of a man who enjoyed himself, loved art, and remained an important part of New York’s cultural world. There are no unnecessary attempts to turn every scene into tragedy.
Jimmy refuses to bow down to the disease that is slowly but surely taking his life and threatening his spirit. Instead of disappearing, he rehearses, performs, talks, loves, argues, and continues occupying as much space as possible.
The film also does not romanticize him. Jimmy can be selfish, demanding, and difficult. His energy can overwhelm those around him, particularly his devoted partner Dennis, played by Tom Sturridge, and his sister Brenda, played by Rebecca Hall. They often carry more fear about his condition than Jimmy allows himself to show.
That honesty makes the character far more interesting. Jimmy is not turned into a saint simply because he is dying. He remains complicated, frustrating, funny, passionate, and completely himself.
Rami Malek gives a beautiful and emotionally layered performance. He captures Jimmy’s defiance and hunger for life without turning either quality into something theatrical for the sake of the audience. His work is supported wonderfully by Sturridge and Hall, whose characters reveal the painful experience of watching someone they love move toward an ending they cannot prevent.
The title The Man I Love carries particular weight because the film is as much about those who love Jimmy as it is about Jimmy himself. Dennis and Brenda must respect his desire to live freely while quietly preparing themselves for the loss ahead. Their love is expressed not through dramatic speeches but through patience, presence, frustration, and the decision to remain beside him.
Visually, the film is warm and intimate. Sachs allows scenes to unfold without rushing toward major revelations. He trusts rehearsals, shared meals, silences, and faces to communicate what the characters cannot always say directly.
The Man I Love is ultimately a portrait of an artist who understands that his remaining time is limited but refuses to let that limit his imagination. AIDS may be taking his body, but it does not become the author of his final chapter. Jimmy remains the author of his own life—imperfect, defiant, loved, and determined to stay connected to the art that gave his existence meaning.