Gay American independent filmmaker Ira Sachs may have detractors, although for those who follow his films, The Man I Love offers a seamless deepening of themes to follow on from Passages 2023 and Peter Hujar’s Day 2025.

The setting is New York in the 1980’s and a world threatened by the AIDS/HIV virus. This is not, as some may claim, just another film about AIDS. Far from it. Sachs is less interested in the virus than in how intertwined characters navigate each other in a world of shifting life and love.

One of the characters is Jimmy, played by Rami Malek. An alternative fringe theatre performer, he is rehearsing a play involving complex drag and disco characters as well as confronting recent AIDS diagnosis. The Man I Love also zooms in on what appears to be his settled relationship with partner Dennis, played with a sensitive, nuanced performance by Tom Sturridge.

The dynamic is like that of Franz Rogowski in Passages, who steps outside a settled gay relationship after a chance encounter with a woman. Unsettled by his health prognosis, Jimmy begins to change as a rootless, awkward young man, played by Luther Ford, moves into the New York City apartment block and connects with him. Although Peter Hujar’s Day was filmed entirely within an apartment, Sachs’ attachment to New York made it possible to feel the city beyond four walls. The Man I Love does go outside, and  New York feels both alive and vibrant as a setting for another of the city and its tales of unrequited love.

Sachs’ skill with actors is always assured. Performances here are all finely tuned, and critical debate about performance and actors’ gender feels irrelevant when the result is as sensitive and convincing as the interplay between actors and characters in The Man I Love.

It was rumored that during the making of the film Sachs was making a musical. It turns out that songs are more part of the film’s rhythm of life, making this no more a musical than the way maverick American director Robert Altman trailblazed musical performance in Nashville (1975).

The raw tenderness of filming in real time with often untrained voices adds depth and pathos, including when Malek sings a beautiful, soulful version of Melanie Safka’s 1970s torch song “Look What Have They Done to My Song, Ma?” during his parents’ wedding anniversary.  Malek also sings Gershwin’s “The Man I Love “and touchingly makes it feel more about “waiting for the man I love”. Sachs’ interest in spoken word and the human voice is clear from Ben Whishaw’s performance in Peter Hujar’s Day, although the natural sound recording of The Man I Love renders some dialogue difficult to hear.

Malek provides a remarkable, touchingly felt performance with a fascinating uncertain tonal range that taps into his character’s damaged soul. The end of the film shifts focus to the outsider in the relationship, with a finale involving dance music that recalls another lost, twisted gay character in Claire Denis’ Beau Travail.

Themes link The Man I Love and Elsinore, with both focusing on central gay characters confronting creativity and mortality. There are differences as well. Simon Stone’s Elsinore plays to the theatrical beat of actor and theatre. Sachs’ film feels cinematic in range and mood. The Man I Love may not be loved by those who don’t love Sachs, but there is plenty here for admirers of a creative independent gay filmmaker.