So I *just* watched it last night ... and I was surprised from what I saw ... the usual sexed-up Tom Ford presents here a nice homage to Isherwood on a very polished, perfectly manicured film with scenes to take your breath away (mostly about how they were designed)
On the cast:
Colin Firth plays the role of a lifetime here. His acting is very demure and he effortlessly seems to portray the nuances of George (the main character). He is perfectly synched with him and never ever during the entire film I saw a single crack on his performance ... it was delightful ... which makes me question the posts from other tfsers saying that this was crap because his performance has no match.
Julianne Moore has a small role on the movie .. I thought she wud get more filmtime but her scenes were very very good. Her accent was totally convincing as well as her performance .. who wudnt love to see Julianne play a desperate housewife?
The others: Matthew and Nicolas (is it?) they surprised me with the their performance ... esp the young Nic ... hes SO not my cup of tea but I liked him in the film ... Oh! And wasnt Ginniffer lovely in it?
Another note on the cast is that I can not imagine any other person playing any other character ... twas flawless casting.
Now .. about the film .. there were some CLEAR influences of Almodovar and Wong Kar Wai (and dare I say .. Todd Haynes?). Ill admit his style is not yet fully developed and the editing seemed a bit choppy, but the main flaw in the movie is that it fails to engage the spectator ... you never fully relate to the main character (well it happened to me once, but the scene was too short and moved to another one so ..) and thats quite a shame cuz the story is quite beautiful ...
A lot of people critized about the (ab)use if the deepening of colours on certain scenes .. I LOVED it and didnt seem that gimmicky ... the scene with Kortajarenas is one to remember ... you've never been hit on like that and he's not intimidated by Colin's acting chops .. awesome!
I believe the film works better as vignettes ... the scenes themselves work (except as his failed attempt to comedy with the pee scene) and the attention to detail which seems to annoy everyone is the thing I love the most ... you just can not deny that it is a beautifully shot film.
I saw watch it!
soundtrack is pretty good too 
