Pros: Stylishly sumptuous and superbly acted with audacious, incisive irony that's incendiary and compelling
Cons: Supporting characters are one-dimensional and the "gay guilt" loses focus to the inter-racial theme
The Bottom Line: Writer/director Todd Haynes conceives a retro-melodrama with a contemporary twist in this study of a repressed Connecticut socialite coping with sexuality and race relations in affluent suburbia.
When Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore), a Hartford housewife/mother, discovers her successful sales exec husband (Dennis Quaid) locked in a secret embrace with a man, she's shocked and confused yet determined to save her marriage. It's 1957...as she confesses: "I don't understand." "I know it's bad because it makes me feel despicable," he admits.
Bound by a conventional conspiracy of silence, she turns for comfort to gentle, confiding conversations with Raymond (Dennis Haysbert), her sensitive, well-educated widower gardener. But back in the 1950s, when a white woman was seen socializing with a black man, it ignited scandalous, hateful gossip, resulting in social ostracism.
Deliberately paying homage to the intense colors, visual style and self-sacrificing emotional tone of director Douglas Sirk's "Imitation of Life," "Magnificent Obsession" genre, writer/director Todd Haynes ("Safe," "Velvet Goldmine") constructs a subtle, cleverly incisive screenplay that explore the multi-layered psychological ramifications of unseemly conduct - both homosexual and inter-racial - in an era when words unspoken were often more vicious than what was said aloud.
(If you're not familiar with Douglas Sirk's sleek soap operas, I suggest you rent "All That Heaven Allows" (1955), in which a middle-aged, middle-class widow (Jane Wyman) enters into a romantic relationship with her young gardener (Rock Hudson), causing consternation among her children, friends and society.)
In "Far From Heaven," Edward Lachman's cinematography, Mark Friedberg's production design, Sandy Powell's color-coordinated costumes and Elmer Bernstein's lush music underscore the idyllic, autumnal poignancy of this specific time and place.
With Julianne Moore, the quality you can always count on is intelligence, as she delivers a raw, riveting performance, while Dennis Quaid captures the insecurity and pain inherent in the husband. Dennis Haysbert is the epitome of tender concern and consideration, evoking Sidney Poitier's perfection in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" (1967).
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Far From Heaven" is a stylishly sumptuous, audacious 8 with incisive irony that's incendiary and compelling.
"Far From Heaven" had its world premiere at the 2002 Venice International Film Festival, where it won two awards: Best Actress (Julianne Moore) and the Individual Contribution Award (to the film's cinematographer Edward Lachman, A.S.C.). It also had a successful screening at the 2002 Toronto Film Festival.
For more of an insight into the way forbidden relationships have evolved since the middle of the 20th century, you might want to rent "A Patch of Blue," "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" and/or "A Place in the Sun."
Finally, "Far From Heaven" was not filmed in Hartford, Connecticut, but in and around New Jersey...for reasons that elude me completely.
Set in the 1950s, an upper-middle-class housewife is having an affair with the gardener while her successful husband struggles with his own sexuality....More at HotMovieSale.com
Academy Award nominee Julianne Moore (Hannibal, Boogie Nights) and Dennis Quaid (The Rookie, Frequency) star in this seductive story of a seemingly pe...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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