All That Heaven Allows

"All That Heaven Allows" is a film about risks, regrets, and unexpected second chances. We all have had something beautiful, exciting, and wonderful in our grasp, but some of us were foolish and scared enough to let that splendid something escape. Maybe we'll get another chance, maybe we won't, but the pain of regret in between can become unbearable.

This is what our protagonist, Cary Scott, goes through. Cary (Jane Wyman)is a widow of a certain age, who feels trapped by her pristine, suburban existence. She has two children who are away at college, and she is beginning to realize that all her neighbors who claim to be her friends are a bunch of shallow, phony elitists. Cary is unexpectedly swept off her feet by dashing nature lover Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson, as ridiculously charming and brawny as ever). They fall instantly in love and Cary's zest for life is restored by Ron's kindness and simple life values. The fact that Ron is Cary's gardener and over a decade younger than she is doesn't sit well with her neighbors, her callow, eggheaded daughter, or her boorish son. Cary tries to be strong, but her role as the perfect, 1950s suburbanite blinds her to her heart's desire. Cary ends her relationship with Ron... and soon sees how stupid she was to care about others' opinions. Will she get another chance at love, or is she doomed to waste away all alone in a small-town Purgatory?

Douglas Sirk drenches "All That Heaven Allows" in lush, autumnal hues and sweet, somewhat ironic, orchestral score. If it's not one of the best films ever made, it certainly is one of the most beautiful to look at. Wyman and Hudson ooze with romantic chemistry, and the supporting cast of actors are all deliciously hateful as the antagonists who try to tear our lovers apart. Hudson is charming and earthy as always, and with his soothing voice, broad shoulders and ready smile, you don't blame Cary at all for falling for him (who wouldn't??). I liked Jane Wyman as Cary, but found myself wishing she'd stop being so damn nice and just give her horrible kids and friends a good smack in the face and a proper chewing out for trying to dictate her life.

There is so much more going on beneath the surface of "ATHA": Sirk, without being preachy, shows us the common, conformist attitude of the 1950s. How many people saw their loved ones be blacklisted during the McCarthy years... and cruelly abandoned them just because of fear of rumors and speculation? How many husbands kept mum when women were practically forced to be only wives and mothers? "ATHA" doesn't bring up these issues, but it does make one important point: Conformity, injustice, and bitter silence ran rampant during that time. Yet older generations foolishly pine for the '50s with rose-colored nostalgia.

But throwing away your dreams because of what others' think is an ancient problem in human nature, which Sirk primarily addresses. We must learn, sooner or later, that it is more important to do what we feel, not what others tell us, is right. Follow you heart, Sirk urges us. This is what Cary must learn, what we must all learn.

Douglas Sirk is a truly underrated director, and this film shows why. Although this film becomes more highly regarded as the years go by, especially by non-Americans, it is usually regarded as just a well made soaper. Big mistake. This is a very angry film, a scathing commentary on the conformity and mindlessness that characterized much of the 1950s. Remember, this film was made in 1955, before there were any beatniks or hippies, before the civil rights movement, before there was any pot smoking, before anyone beyond the fringes questioned any of the basic values underlying capitalist America. America was at the peak of its power and prestige, and this was perhaps the first mainstream film that questioned the values that presumably were responsible for that ascendancy. Because this film is essentially about class and the primacy that human relationships must have over material gain, social acceptance, and social conformity.

Think of the forbidden (at the time) themes that this film deals with. Older woman, younger man. The shallowness, insipidity, and snobbery of the upper middle class arrivistes who have "made it," all of which masks their basic insecurity, unhappiness, and self-loathing. A male lead who doesn't care about acceptance by anyone, who doesn't care about money or success, who just wants to be happy and "do his own thing," well over a decade before that phrase was coined. The Wyman character foolishly (at first) decides that acceptance by her peers and children is more important than finding happiness with a man she truly loves, and what does she end up with for companionship? A television set! This was the decade in which "The Lonely Crowd" was published, and this film exemplifies that concept, as well as striking examples of other- vs. inner-directed, far better than any other film of its time.

Sirk was truly a visionary, well ahead of his time. This was why this film inspired Fassbinder's "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" and Todd Haynes' "Far from Heaven." It is all the more powerful for having been made then and in not being a retrospective look, as is "Far from Heaven," from a more "enlightened" future time. For its social import, I rate this 9/10.

There is nothing to add to all the other comments about Sirk's wonderful direction, color palette, camera placement, etc. Sumptuous visual story telling!

What compels repeated viewings, though, is Jane Wyman's amazing accomplishment here. Especially compared to Sirk's subsequent sudsy masterpiece featuring Lana Turner, "Imitation of Life."

Wyman was always good and always INTERESTING. She held the camera. No doubt about that. Was she a great actress? Did she ever get a script that let her PROVE she was? It's arguable.

But here I think she truly WAS. Line for line, this is fairly pedestrian material. ("I let others make my decisions for me.") Each scene, like a string of pearls, is well-constructed. The plot too contains emotional conflicts and arcs that sustain the whole and reward us in the end.

But the lines themselves? In lesser hands the entire enterprise would have laughably bombed.

The supporting cast is top-notch. They ALL know their way around a line. Especially Agnes Moorehead and Jacqueline de Wit.

Even the early Rock Hudson, another star not known for impressive acting chops, who later found his REAL niche in light comedies with Doris Day, in which he was terrific, shines here. What he's asked to do he does naturally, easily, sincerely and affectingly. His sexual heat, jaw-dropping good looks, that voice and, yes, manliness, were perhaps never before or afterward captured so effectively on screen.

But "All That Heaven Allows" is Jane Wyman's picture all the way, and she's heavenly in all of it.

Though everything she does looks unstudied and completely naturalistic, hers is a consummate technical display of film acting on the highest level.

Listen to her vocal inflections alone. Completely naturalistic. Except dramatically varied and supported by heightened emotion that is anything but "natural" and is all "art." (She could also sing, and sing well.)

Watch her movements. Same thing. All in character, not an ounce of phoniness. But so precise, economical and scaled for the camera that, again, you're watching the art of a well-trained professional performing at a high level.

Then, watch her amazing close-ups. You can read her every thought and emotion and reaction -- widely varying throughout the emotional plot arcs -- without her saying a word. Without an ounce of overplaying.

Her seeming simplicity here, as an artist, an actress, is so focused yet subtle that she pulls you in and holds you completely every moment she's on screen.

That, without being a natural or classic "beauty" like Lana Turner or Elizabeth Taylor, and without the aggressive showiness of actresses like Bette Davis or Joan Crawford or Katharine Hepburn.

The script doesn't offer Wyman the histrionic fireworks of more flamboyant roles given some other actresses.

But the layered richness and honesty of Wyman's performance here is the central achievement that keeps you returning to "All That Heaven Allows" again and again.

Yes, it's a great performance.

German-born director Douglas Sirk made several melodramatic films in the 1950s that reflected Eisenhower-era sensibilities about morality and class structure within the flourish of his decidedly Baroque film-making approach. Dubbed trivially though appropriately as "women's pictures", they reflect a defining, often over-the-top style which has inspired other filmmakers, most obviously, Todd Haynes with his accomplished 2002 partial remake, "Far From Heaven". In my opinion, this 1955 film best represents Sirk's technique and consequently it is his best work. Fortunately, the Criterion Collection has seen fit to produce a DVD package commensurate with the quality of the film itself.

Similar to the later "Peyton Place", the plot is pure small-town soap opera, but the storyline is far more focused and nuanced than one would expect. Attractive fortyish widow Cary Scott is leading a sheltered life of unsolicited solitude with her beautiful home, circle of country club friends and two grown children away in college. She catches the eye of Ron Kirby, her young buck of a gardener, who turns out to be a non-materialistic, Thoreau-reading lover of nature who lives outside of town in a greenhouse in an only-in-Hollywood idyllic setting. Cary is definitely attracted to the much younger Ron, but her worries of what others may think prevents her from being too demonstrative about her feelings. Of course, their platonic relationship turns into forbidden love, at which point Cary tries to win the approval of her friends and children when she announces her engagement to Ron. In one way or the other, they all reject her decision, and she breaks off the engagement. The rest of the story works toward a hopeful but still tentative conclusion, which seems befitting of what audiences probably expected in the 1950s.

On the surface, it sounds as emotionally manipulative as a Danielle Steele romance novel. However, what fascinates me most about Sirk's film is how he sets up such an artificially-derived world and simultaneously shows how deeply committed he is in its credibility. The glorious Technicolor cinematography by the estimable Russell Metty (aided by "color consultant" William Fritzsche) adds to the hermetically sealed environment, but it's also due to how shots are meticulously composed, how the sets are placed, how people are dressed and how Frank Skinner's Rachmaninoff-inspired music heightens the melodrama. The right casting in such a movie, of course, is critical, and Sirk was smart to reunite Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson from their previous teaming in the even more melodramatic "Magnificent Obsession". With his steady, whispered tone and Adonis-like stature, the youthful Hudson is ideally cast as Ron, even if his relentless seriousness overemphasizes the character's innate nobility. What he does surprisingly well, however, is show how Ron's inability to compromise his principles is as much a barrier as the prejudices of Cary's friends and children.

Even better is the elegantly styled Wyman, who manages effectively to convey Cary's conflicting sensibilities and loneliness without seeming desperate. Well before she hardened her persona later with TV's "Falcon Crest", she exuded a girl-next-door likability that didn't really diminish as she matured. The rest of the cast is strong with particularly exceptional work by the women - Agnes Moorehead as Cary's supportive best friend Sara, Virginia Grey as Ron's close friend Alida, Jacqueline deWit as the venal gossip Mona, and Gloria Talbot as Cary's psychology-obsessed daughter Kay. The print transfer on the Criterion Collection DVD is pristine. There is also a nice extra with an edited 30-minute interview with Sirk from a 1979 BBC documentary, "Behind the Mirror".

Due to the success of 1954's "Magnificent Obsession", Universal once again called on Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, and director Douglas Sirk for this passionate, heart-gripping look at the hypocrisy of small-town America. Wyman, a rich widow in this well-to-do New England town, falls in love with her gardener (Hudson) and all hell breaks loose. Her community ridicules her and her grown children are horrified by her. She finds herself having to choose love or the respect of those around her.

The cinematography is beyond extraordinary, the score by Frank Skinner is unbelievably moving, Wyman is exquisite, and Sirk gives some of the best direction of his career. A really classy melodrama and completely worthwhile.