“The Man I Love” premiered at the 79th Cannes Film Festival among a sea of films that build emotion through plot, using the inherent tragedy of an event rather than character development to inform audience reaction. Refusing to follow the same pattern, “The Man I Love” covers the AIDS crisis without mentioning the illness once, guiding the audience solely through its core personalities and relationships.

Centering on Jimmy George (Rami Malek), a well-regarded theatrical artist rehearsing a new play, “The Man I Love” successfully portrays Jimmy’s artistic pursuits while also inviting the audience into his personal life. Jimmy has only recently regained his health at the start of the film, having suffered a nearly fatal case of pneumonia. Still recovering, he struggles to memorize his lines and the film tracks his intense frustrations as he seeks comfort from his long-term boyfriend, Dennis (Tom Sturridge), and his downstairs neighbor, Vincent (Luther Ford). More importantly, “The Man I Love” captures Jimmy’s stubborn insistence on living — and living to his fullest — even with the looming threat of AIDS.

The film immediately immerses its audience in 1980s New York City with magnetic sets, pastel costumes, and retro furniture. The production designer, Tommy Love, drew inspiration from photographer Allen Frame, closely studying and replicating the atmosphere of the 1980s era.

The cinematography is integral and exceptional. Its standout moments come during party sequences, where colors flash from black and red to black and blue, the camera zooming in on Jimmy’s movements as he finds liberation on the dance floor. These visual effects complement the production design, embodying the highs of 1980s queer culture.

However, the emotion most successfully captured throughout is depression. While the characters rarely break down, the actors do a brilliant job of subtly conveying their hardships: even a slight downturn of their eyes renders the film heart-wrenching from opening credits to conclusion. “The Man I Love” has no standout performance in that every actor excels from Oscar-winner Malek and two-time Tony-nominee Sturridge, to more rising stars such as Ford.

Even amid their hardships, the characters are determined to make the most of life and are thus easy to root for. Viewers become so connected to the characters that they themselves feel like members of Jimmy’s family, and consequently, they equally face the devastation of his AIDs diagnosis.

This is made possible by Ira Sachs and Mauricio Zacharias’ skillful, organic writing. Jimmy’s acting process emphasizes the personal stakes he has with the role as he morphs into it, demanding perfection of himself. Part of the realism likely comes out of the writer’s own lived experience during the period. At its press conference, co-writer and director Sachs said that he made the film “because [he] lived it” and was a “survivor of that time.”

“The Man I Love” is only 95 minutes and keeps most of the plot unsaid through its sparse dialogue. While this choice is largely successful, fostering great emotion even within a short span of time, the film could have benefited from greater interpersonal detail. Most notably, it could have expanded on Jimmy’s relationship with Vincent beyond their two or three on-screen interactions, which leaves their dynamic underdeveloped, jumping from strangers to lovers without much explanation. This lack of interpersonal development is what prevents it from reaching its full potential.

“The Man I Love” feels real and lived-in. Released alongside several stellar queer films at Cannes, it had a tough bar to meet and still held its own. It’s the kind of project that will linger with its audience, reminding that beneath the tragedy of AIDS were lives marked by joy, connection, and love.

—Staff writer Anat Goldstein can be reached at [email protected].