‘The Man I Love’ review: A powerful Rami Malek drives Ira Sachs’s compelling, opaque queer drama

Dir. Ira Sachs. US. 2026. 95mins

Love, sex and art put up a noble fight against death in Ira Sachs’s The Man I Love, a both sombre and joyful dramatic portrait of young queer ‘theatre artist’ Jimmy George (Rami Malek) in late 1980s New York City. It’s a spare drama of isolated moments and scenes, and one which strongly resists melodrama and false emotion – so much so that it can feel as enigmatic as it does empowering and non-exploitative. It’s during the powerful musical scenes, including songs sung by the characters themselves, that the film comes most alive. 

Can feel as enigmatic as it does empowering 

The Man I Love marks Sachs’s second time in Cannes Competition after 2019’s Frankie. That Portugal-set family-reunion drama veered from the LGBTQ+-themed and NYC-set stories for which Sachs is best known. Now he returns squarely to the territory of Passages (2023), Love Is Strange (2014) and Keep The Lights On (2012), all urban stories about queer relationships with a clear-eyed view of the painful and mysterious realities of intimacy. As with Sachs’s most recent film Peter Hujar’s Day (2025),  The Man I Love should find a strong base among Sachs admirers and LGBTQ+ film audiences. A strong central performance from Malek, plus critical support and likely further festival berths, should help to broaden its appeal among arthouse audiences.

Jimmy is a magnetic character, proud and strutting, his dress as sharp as his jawline – all characteristics which Malek embraces to deliver a performance of resilience punctuated with flashes of vulnerability. Jimmy lives with a loving, supportive partner, Dennis (Tom Sturridge), and a wider and lively community of family, friends and colleagues are regularly present – pushing Dennis into the background but giving Jimmy a captive audience at every turn. Jimmy’s sister (Rebecca Hall) and her family are often close by; a troupe of actors and musicians regularly pack out Jimmy and Dennis’s apartment at night; and a new upstairs neighbour, Vincent (Luther Ford), is increasingly mesmerised by the beautiful actor downstairs. 

Sachs and co-writer Maurício Zacharias are clearly determined to avoid anything which resembles a conventional tear-jerker. Their script takes its cue from its determinedly unconventional protagonist: it’s surprising and hard to pin down. It wears its heart on its sleeve one minute and feels opaque the next. The film takes a long time before even confirming that Jimmy is seriously ill. In fact, there’s never a direct mention of HIV or AIDS in the script: the closest we get is an explanation from Dennis to Vincent that Jimmy recently spent three weeks in hospital with pneumonia and is taking an overwhelming array of drugs, including AZT. Even this moment feels like a concession to convention.

Sachs and Zacharias are more interested in Jimmy’s escapes from his difficult reality;  art and love. Jimmy is rehearsing a scrappy Off-Off-Broadway adaptation of the 1974 Quebecois film Once Upon A Time In The East and determined to push through to opening night despite struggling with his lines. Dennis, often red-eyed and teary, is frightened and exasperated by the growing closeness between Jimmy and Vincent, but he seems to understand that love is a performance through which Jimmy can face up to the realities of his mortality. It’s a sophisticated and sympathetic idea, emblematic of the film’s overall intelligent and touching approach to its subject.

Like Jimmy, The Man I Love remains elusive. The film’s determination not to succumb to conventional storytelling or reveal too much information can feel like an admirable and intriguing but also distancing attempt to reflect the messiness of illness and grief. Sachs saves the strongest emotions for the songs, and the film feels most alive in these moments. There’s a devastating scene where Jimmy sings Melanie’s ‘What Have They Done To My Song Ma’ at a family event, and another equally moving moment in whic he sings George and Ira Gershwin’s ‘The Man I Love’ with both Dennis and Vincent looking on. The question of who, exactly, is the man loved – and by whom – is left pleasingly open. 

As in his previous films, Sachs’s work with his actors is compassionate and revealing. A lot is conveyed with just a glance here or a line there. Similarly, Josée Deshaies’s cinematography and Tommy Love’s production design avoids over-emphasising the period of the film. The Man I Love doesn’t feel so much like a portrait of a time and place rather than something more essential and human: a portrait of a passionate and loving character caught in a final performance he didn’t ask for, and which he wishes would never end.