In a year in which Hollywood studio films were largely absent from the Croisette, all eyes were on the two American films in the Cannes Film Festival competition: James Gray’s Paper Tiger and Ira Sachs’s The Man I Love. Although there is a lot to recommend about The Man I Love, especially from a technical and performance standpoint, it rings hollow on an emotional level — a rarity for Sachs.

What is The Man I Love about?

The Man I Love follows a queer artist who learns to cope with his mortality as he experiences unexpected love nearing his final days. Ira Sachs is a unique filmmaker in that he takes premises that often sound awards baity and turns them into something that is anything but, but unfortunately, he doesn’t avoid those trappings this time around.

The Man I Love Review

Like the rest of Sachs’s work, The Man I Love is most effective at creating an evocative atmosphere. Sachs clearly has a deep love for the gay scene in 1980s New York, and it’s infectious because of how much of a vibe he makes his films to be. And The Man I Love has the advantage of being more propulsive than the academic Peter Hujar’s Day, meaning that it’s a ton of fun to spend time in this world Sachs is building despite the specter we all know looms over it.

Related: La bola negra (The Black Ball) Cannes Review: A Stunningly Ambitious Gay Epic

The visual style of the film is quite strong. This feels, in many ways, like a more ambitious and less intimate project than we are used to seeing from Sachs. Obviously, as a period piece, there is a lot of attention to detail in the visuals to help periodize the setting. But the technical element that actually stands out the most is the editing, which has a very alluring, rhythmic quality to it that lends the film a wonderful flow.

The use of music is another key aspect of The Man I Love’s success. Some might describe Sachs’ latest as a musical of sorts, but it’s arguably more apt to describe it as a drama with musical interludes. These moments in which characters perform songs for a diegetic audience often serve as emotional inflection points for the film, bridging one passage to the next in terms of feeling.

Yet despite all of this, The Man I Love still feels somewhat cold, and this is because of insufficient character development. You won’t feel like you know much about this character by the time the film ends. And while this may be purposeful, meant to use the protagonist as a composite for the many gay men who had this experience during the AIDS crisis, it keeps the film from having the profound emotional impact that it could otherwise have.

The other issue is that Sachs doesn’t have anything particularly novel or interesting to say about  the era or its happenings. There are a lot of movies about AIDS at this point, and to stand out, a filmmaker really needs to have a unique perspective to share. This seems like something, on paper, that Sachs would offer considering the themes he has explored in his past work (especially and including Peter Hujar’s Day), but he unfortunately does not deliver.

What is likely to keep The Man I Love in the conversation is the fact that it offers what might be the best performance in Rami Malek’s career. As a Bohemian Rhapsody defender, his portrayal of Freddie Mercury is a very strong impersonation. His turn in The Man I Love is something much more nuanced — a quiet subversion that is almost in direct contrast to the bigger strokes we’re used to seeing him paint with. While there are dozens of actors who have played roles like this, many of them very well, it feels like Malek makes this performance his own to the point where it ‌almost would not have worked as well without him.

Related: Paper Tiger Cannes Review: Adam Driver Is Excellent in James Gray’s Otherwise Tepid Crime Drama

However, as good as Malek is in his role, audiences might walk away from the film more impressed by someone else’s performance. Luther Ford (The Crown) is just utterly soul-crushing in his role, which is surprising considering that he is still relatively green as an actor. Whereas Malek’s role is all about suppressing emotions, Ford’s is more about expressing them freely. The result is a fabulous juxtaposition.

The Man I Love posits itself as an ensemble film, with lots of supporting players in a star-studded cast, including Tom Sturridge (who actually has one of the best moments in the film), Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Rebecca Hall, and Sasha Lane. Yet, the film is still most effective when you look at it as a two-hander between Malek and Ford.

Is The Man I Love worth watching?

There are some really amazing things happening in The Man I Love, including a couple of stunning performances and very well-executed technical elements. However, it just doesn’t deliver from a storytelling standpoint, causing the final result to feel somewhat unsatisfying.

The Man I Love premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, which runs May 12-23.
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