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Reviewed by Ivana Redwine
Tagline: "What imprisons desires of the heart?" Length: 107 minutes During its theatrical release, "Far From Heaven" was a big hit with the critics and ended up receiving Academy Award nominations for Best Actress (Julianne Moore), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Musical Score. Now the movie has been released on DVD, and when I watched it at home recently, I loved it. Also, the DVD comes with fairly good bonus materials, which I have listed below. I found myself very emotionally caught up in "Far From Heaven," mainly because the film made me care so much about its characters. There's no villain in the movie, and the story's conflict results from the repressive society the characters live in. I think the film does a brilliant job of communicating how it must have felt to live in the United States in the late 1950s, and it seems to me the problems depicted in the movie still resonate 45 years later. "Far From Heaven" takes place in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1957-58. The central character is Cathy Whitaker (Moore), a homemaker with two school-age kids. Cathy's husband Frank (Dennis Quaid) is an executive with a company that makes television sets, and the Whitakers own a lovely suburban house and socialize with an upscale circle of friends. In fact, the Whitakers seem to be the perfect Eisenhower-era American family. But the Whitakers' lives begin to unravel when Frank's sexual involvement with men starts to emerge. Cathy wants desperately to save her marriage, and Frank is in agony over the trouble he is causing. He consults a psychiatrist, who cautions him that there is only a "five to thirty percent rate of success for complete heterosexual conversion." Frank tells the psychiatrist, "I promise you, Dr. Bowman, I'm going to beat this thing." As Cathy's marriage to Frank crumbles, she meets a handsome, cultured black man named Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), who owns and operates a small gardening business. In her second conversation with Raymond, she tells him, "I'm not prejudiced. My husband and I have always believed in equal rights for the Negro and support the N.A.A.C.P." Raymond gracefully overlooks Cathy's initial awkwardness, and they take tentative steps toward forming a friendship. Then one day when Cathy is at an emotional low, she accepts Raymond's invitation to lunch, and she is seen with him by the town gossip. Soon tongues are wagging in a community that does not tolerate racially mixed couples, and Cathy is forced to begin to face up to the harsh realities of her situation. I find it fascinating that "Far From Heaven" is done in the spirit of Douglas Sirk's 1950s Hollywood melodramas, including "Magnificent Obsession" (1954), "Written on the Wind" (1956), "Imitation of Life" (1959), and particularly "All That Heaven Allows" (1955). However, the sensibilities of the old Sirk movies aren't slavishly imitated in "Far From Heaven." In particular, the new film's frank treatment of homosexuality and occasional use of swearing were not permitted in 1950s American movies. In any event, I think you can thoroughly enjoy "Far From Heaven" without having seen any of Sirk's films. Julianne Moore's exquisite performance is the centerpiece of "Far From Heaven," and she is ably supported by Dennis Quaid and Dennis Haysbert. I also liked the sumptuous color cinematography of Edward Lachman and Elmer Bernstein's lush romantic musical score. I am very impressed with the way writer-director Todd Haynes has created a highly stylized, yet emotionally powerful, film. Let me emphasize that "Far From Heaven" does not take a nostalgic look back at a kinder, gentler America. Instead, the film paints a portrait of a society that systematically oppresses women, blacks, and gays. Although conditions have improved for these groups in the intervening decades, I think the movie provides insights into social problems that are still far from solved. Special Features of the DVD:
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