Lontano dal paradiso

Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid effectively inhabit their roles in "Far From Heaven," an engrossing flashback to an affluent northeastern suburb, Hartford CT in 1957-8. Quaid is Frank Whitaker, top sales exec in a company meeting the voracious needs of American consumers for the latest in gadgets and appliances. His wife, Cathy, is so much the high profile model for the typical stay-at-home, support your hubby, take care of the kids mom that she is shadowed by the local gossip reporter and her photographer. She thinks she has the perfect marriage and two terrific if not invariably best behaved kids. Both, however, are too interesting to be mistaken as a large screen resurrection of a 50s sitcom couple.

Cathy can't catch the clue when she bails Frank out of the police station and he mutters angrily about the arresting officers mistaking him for a "loiterer." A loiterer in a neat business suit with a topcoat in Hartford? Only one kind of well-dressed character like that attracted police attention in those days.

Dispensing good cheer everywhere, Cathy decides to bring dinner to her hardworking-at-night husband (no spoiler here, every media review has this part). And what should she find? Frank is in the arms of a man, kissing him actually, clothing in disarray.

Today, a presumably straight spouse or lover being gay, secretly, isn't a taboo subject. It was in Cathy and Frank's time and, in fact, no movie from that period would have touched this subject with a ten-foot boom mike. "An Affair to Remember" was risque enough.

Cathy insists Frank get help and James Rebhorn in a brief role as psychiatrist Dr. Bowman explains the most modern therapeutic approaches to "converting" Frank to exclusive heterosexuality. This was in the days when homosexuality was an official diagnosed mental illness.

In what could have been a familiar variation of the white/black awkward beginnings of friendship seen in Sidney Poitier movies but which in this instance has a refreshing originality, Cathy befriends gardener Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert). An attractive and prominent white woman being seen in public with a black man in the South at this time would have led to probably horrific repercussions. Here we get to see 1950s racist northern suburbia, people who decry Arkansas obduracy (there's a brief shot of President Eisenhower on TV announcing the despatch of the 101st Airborne Division to confront the state's mad governor at Little Rock High School) while dispensing their own venom. No guns, no lynchings, no white sheets - just an insidious degradation of blacks, reducing them to actual invisibility when convenient.

The friendship between Cathy and Raymond is at first tentative and it grows with affecting tenderness. So does the shocked anger of the wealthy gaggle in Frank and Cathy's social circle.

Is Frank cured of his "illness?" Does racial tolerance and respect for diversity seep into Hartford's tony neighborhood? Does everyone live happily ever after? Go see the film. The mid-afternoon packed audience in Manhattan's Lincoln Plaza Cinema broke into applause at the end.

Viola Davies turns in a small but critically important role as the Whitaker's maid, Sybil. Fine acting.

Director Todd Haynes allowed Moore and Quaid to make their roles real, involving, and anguished and funny in turn. Both stars deserve Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.

Rooted in the 50s in many ways, composer Elmer Bernstein turned out a good score, original rather than depending on recognizable tunes from the time. But as is so often the case, at points the score is unduly intrusive where the actors' words and expressions convey all that is necessary, music being an annoyance.

8/10.

Todd Haynes is an acquired taste but nobody can deny his gifted approach to filmmaking. Far from heaven is an interesting film starring Julianne Moore and with a look that evokes the films of the 50s. Everything about Far from Heaven playfully yet reverently alludes to the 1950s as a movie genre. The rich and digitally enhanced autumn leaves feature as tableaux, and as a discreet and tasteful design for the opening and closing credits. Elmer Bernstein's score imitates the lush foliage with its extravagantly emotional strings, later arranged with much emphasis on brooding keyboard and woodwind, dotting and crossing the drama's every "i" and "t". Mark Friedberg's production design is outstanding, surpassing his period work on Pollock and The Ice Storm. Sandy Powell's costumes are superb, especially for Moore herself who is allowed noticeably fuller skirts as the queen bee of her daiquiri-sipping ladies' circle, and some truly show stopping elbow-length gloves for a party scene.

Having grown up on the wrong side of the tracks in the fifties, I have great appreciation for this film. Mine was a small town where everyone knew everyone else's business. This is a portrait of an incredible woman. It is played with a subtle touch by Julianne Moore. She faces two of the most incredible taboos that existed at that time: homosexuality (which was a mystery to everyone) and a woman's connection to a man of a different race (though entirely innocent). This brings out the hypocrisy and hatred, forced on enlightened people by a supposedly Christian society (actually things aren't that much different in 2010). This story is as simple as it is complex. The characters reveal themselves by their silences as much as their actions. Dennis Quaid's character could be seen as a victim, but he is personally hard to swallow. Yes, he should have the right to live and be happy, but his rants and his duplicity make him rather unappetizing. People talk about the good old days. They weren't so good for a large segment of the population.

Todd Haynes' achievement in his homage to the films of Douglas Sirk is so complete, and seems so carefree that it is easy to dismiss FAR FROM HEAVEN as a trifle. The look of such ease is deceptive, however. Haynes' accomplishment, that of telling a new story through a loving recreation of the 50's weepy, is visually sumptuous and sweetly moving. The painstaking effort, from the amazingly overblown dialogue (ever so slightly exaggerated from the style of the actual 50's weepy) to the oversaturated colors and evocative score, never strains the film.

In Julianne Moore he finds the perfect heroine. Her performance is so skilled that we don't see her at work. Though nominated, Ms. Moore was sadly overlooked at the 2003 Oscars. Apparently no one could see past Nicole Kidman's prosthetic nose in THE HOURS. (When a beautiful actress plays "ugly" she wins an award. Ms. Kidman's performance in THE HOURS is one of her best in that deeply moving film, but it hardly matches the subtlety and difficulty of Ms. Moore's work in FAR FROM HEAVEN.) With such breathtaking ease that we forget she is acting, Ms. Moore scales the grand challenge of using melodramatic dialogue that verges deliberately on camp to reveal the tenderness and desire of the naive 50's housewife who is the center of FAR FROM HEAVEN. (Watch her face in an early scene where she and the excellent Patricia Clarkson talk with their girlfriends about their respective marriages.)

Credit must be given to Haynes as well, who asks his cast to play it straight. Ms. Moore, who consistently achieves beauty and depth with each performance, brings this tender film to life. She has a fine counterpart in the handsome and Dennis Quaid who has not had such a plumb role since his early days.

Though every film should stand on its own, you should check out the milieu that Todd Haynes is working in – the oeuvre of Douglas Sirk being the main source – but you can also check out earlier films like DARK VICTORY and other domestic dramas.

Cathy and Frank are a society couple in 1950's Connecticut. Their perfect house, perfect kids and happy marriage all contribute to making them the toast of the middle classes. However Frank's secret desire for men wrecks Cathy's image of their marriage but they manage to keep it a secret and seek help. When Cathy confides in her black gardener the rumours begin that again threaten Cathy's all-American society queen existence.

It helps when writing a review of a film like this that you can throw round all the right references and draw comparison's wit the two Sirk films from which Haynes drew inspiration from. Sadly I can't do that as I haven't seen either of the works (although have seen some Sirk films), so I'll do the best I can! From the outset this film builds a plastic perfect 50's world before revealing that everything isn't as the outside world (and even those on the inside) may perceive. This works well but the film is strong because it works on several other levels past this one.

Past the fake nature of lives – we are all human after all – are several other broader themes that are not as clear but still important. The place of women is society is one – where Frank's indiscretion appears to still let him work etc, Cathy much smaller crime sees her condemned from all around. Her relationship with Raymond shows how women held social status only as trophies in some circles and, when this role was threatened or made redundant, they had little more standing that blacks etc.

The two fallings of Frank and Cathy are parallel and it is interesting to see the two. Frank stigma that he must hide is one of sexuality while Cathy is less lucky in that her stigma is as clear to observers as the skin on Raymond's face. This is not to say that the film works as well on each of these levels, but it does work well enough on all of them. It is slow and patient and it may frustrate some audiences who will claim `nothing really happens' – if a review says this then ignore it – they have clearly missed the point.

The 50's feel is bang on and very well done. I'm not sure if Haynes has lifted the touches that make it feel `50's' from Sirk directly (i.e. copied) but it really works. The colours are lush and every set and costume feel like it must be straight from the 50's. It is to Haynes credit that he has done this without being camp or wistful in the way that many films set in the period can be. He plays it straight down the line.

The cast are roundly good. Moore deversedly got her nomination for this work and she is excellent. She never goes over the top but is visibly simmering throughout. Quaid is good but has a less complex character to carry, we don't get to understand what he is going through or felling – is it deep guilt, lust, love etc? Haysbert in 24 is OK but plays a stiff, morally righteous man who is so `good' as to be difficult to swallow! Here it is not quite as bad but Raymond is still a ` good, wholesome' man. Haysbert does him well but again I wanted more to the character. The support cast are good and all play the plastic socialites and professionals of 1950's well.

Overall this film is very lush – nothing but praise can be given to director, costumes and set designers etc. The cast are all good even if they must act with decorum and patience throughout and the emotion and drama of the story (although stilted and controlled) is still very involving. A very good film – if it had been made in the 50's it would be held as a classic today.