Rami Malek shed a tear as he soaked up the love in the Palais for his deeply emotional turn in Ira Sachs’ “The Man I Love,” which earned an eight-minute standing ovation Wednesday. The film is notably one of only two American features competing for the Palme d’Or at this year’s festival (the other being James Gray’s “Paper Tiger,” starring Adam Driver, Miles Teller and Scarlett Johansson).
Directed by Sachs, who co-wrote the script with frequent collaborator Mauricio Zacharias, “The Man I Love” is set in New York City during the late 1980s as a theater world icon, Jimmy (Malek), confronts his mortality following an AIDS diagnosis. The synopsis reads: “Faced with the death that awaits him, his thirst to live and create, to desire and to love one last time, is stronger than anything else.” The movie is also described as a “musical fantasia of a city under duress.”
Starring alongside Malek in the film are Tom Sturridge, Rebecca Hall and Ebon Moss-Bachrach. “The Man I Love” marks Ira Sachs’ return to competition at Cannes after his 2019 drama “Frankie,” starring Isabelle Huppert. The filmmaker is more closely associated with Sundance, where many of his recent features like “Passages” and “Peter Hujar’s Day” premiered.
As for Malek, who won the best actor Oscar for his performance as Freddie Mercury in “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Sachs’ drama marks his first time headlining a Cannes competition movie. Malek appeared in two films last year, “Nuremberg” and “The Amateur,” and had a small supporting role in “Oppenheimer” in 2023.