A Single Man / Brit Colin Firth deserves an Oscar nomination for his best-of-career performance in A Single Man, as does Julianne Moore in a smallish but pivotal role. But it’s a new game at the Oscars in early March, and almost no one, save the Avatar posse, is safe from being passed over at the ratings-hungry ceremonies as they seem to be playing out in a hardscrabble 2010. Firth will probably be nominated but chances are the Best Actor statuette will go to hometown favorite Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart.

Nonetheless, writer-director Tom Ford, making his helming debut, has done a credible, savvy version of the Christopher Isherwood novel, making it visually telling and guiding his actors to near-perfection.

It’s 1962 in Santa Monica, California, and homosexual college literature instructor George (Firth), a transplanted Brit, is in stoic crisis: His long-time companion has been killed in an auto accident, and yet the closeted George must pretend that his life has not been shattered.

These are in the days in which outed homosexuals could lose jobs, life insurance policies, driver’s licenses and civil rights by being declared mentally ill.

George’s dead companion’s family won’t have him at the funeral, and George has no one to turn to except his best friend (Moore, terrific as a fading alcoholic).

For the most part, Firth must go to work, greet neighbors (who think him “light in the loafers,”) lecture to students and take care of some special business using his carefully cultivated persona while on the cusp of a full-scale crack-up.

What special business? George has decided to kill himself.

Firth, who has been a respected actor and kind of ersatz star for nearly 30 years, is an industry favorite, but nothing he has done before would suggest the kind of brilliance he displays here, mixing repression, depression and bravado.

What is George to do? He’s middle-aged, an “older” man in a l6-year relationship, dependent on one now-deceased man for his entire unscripted life. With minimalist dialogue, Firth shows in facial expressions and body language the conflict that nearly, but not quite, overwhelms George.

Two scenes are exceptional: The first occurs when a phone call brings George the news of his partner’s death–and he must pretend to the caller that the relationship was friendship, not deep, successful love (which we see in flashbacks). The second occurs when, in anguish, George goes to see Moore at her apartment before he returns home to shoot himself, the pistol and just-purchased bullets laid out on his desk. This scene presents two consummate actors at their peaks, creating a reality as splendid as any caputred on film this year.

Much has been made of the fact that newbie Tom Ford, one of the most successful fashion designers in the world, has made this difficult film. There is no better debut picture this year. Shot on a low budget, this film knows exactly how the early ’60s looked and sounded; and, at 99 minutes, it does not wear out its welcome, so deft is the scripting and film-making.

A believable surprise occurs near the end of this extremely well-crafted story: one of George’s students, concerned about him, seems to come on to him. Hope springs eternal, or does it? The answer is yes–and no.

A sophisticated visual motif (raising the age-old question of whether there is such a thing as a “gay” sensibility) re-appears throughout this film, and Ford seems to be asking us to look very closely. This is not a movie to be merely scanned. Casual audiences are not invited–nor should they be.

A Single Man deserves your attention.