The Man I Love
Rami Malek captivates as an HIV-positive man who combats mortality with moxie in Ira Sachs’s Cannes-competing ode to queerness and libertinism.
New York, late 1980s. Having just left hospital, ebullient theatre artist Jimmy wants to take on life itself: partying with other figures from the West Village demimonde; preparing a spectacular oeuvre for the stage; being seen and loved in every way possible. He is loved, of course, despite his mercurial ego: by Dennis, his devoted partner, and by Brenda, his sister. But Jimmy’s HIV meds don’t guarantee survival; so, when a handsome young Brit moves into the building, Jimmy proceeds with abandon.
Following Peter Hujar’s Day (MIFF 2025), Ira Sachs crafts another stirring time capsule of queer New York; The Man I Love also recalls his immediately previous work, Passages (MIFF 2023), in featuring a love triangle, but here the focus is less on erotic foibles than on the impetuousness of living on borrowed time. Working from a script from Sachs and his regular co-writer Mauricio Zacharias, and acting alongside a formidable Tom Sturridge, Rami Malek brilliantly incarnates Jimmy’s unapologetic audacity and the yearning fragility beneath his bravado. More than an AIDS drama, The Man I Love is a story of perseverance and performativity – about the shows we put on despite the obstacles of health and the heart.
“Melancholy, sexy, and piercingly sad … [Sachs] makes period films that you can feel and touch, almost like stepping into an imagined dream of that particular time in the past.” – IndieWire
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