Far from Heaven

Plot synopsis:
In 1957 suburban Connecticut, Cathy Whitaker appears to be the perfect wife, mother, and homemaker. Cathy is married to Frank, a successful executive at Magnatech, a company selling television advertising. One evening Cathy receives a phone call from the local police who are holding her husband. He says it's all a mix up but they won't let him leave alone. Frank has in fact been exploring the underground world of gay bars in Hartford, Connecticut. One day, Cathy spies an unknown black man walking through her yard. He turns out to be Raymond Deagan, the son of Cathy's late gardener.
Frank often finds himself forced to stay late at the office, swamped with work. One night when Frank is working late, Cathy decides to bring his dinner to him at the office. She walks in on him passionately kissing another man. Frank confesses having had "problems" as a young man, and agrees to sign up for conversion therapy. However, his relationship with Cathy is irreparably strained, and he turns to alcohol.
Cathy runs into Raymond at a local art show, and initiates a discussion with him about modern painting, to the consternation of a few onlookers. One night, after a party, Frank attempts to make love to Cathy. He is unable to become aroused and strikes Cathy when she tries to console him.
Cathy decides to spend a day with Raymond. They go to a bar in the black neighborhood in which she is the only white person present. Raymond toasts her with a drink saying "Here's to being the only one". They are seen together by one of Cathy's neighbors, who immediately tells everyone. The town is soon ablaze with gossip about the two of them. This becomes evident when Cathy attends a ballet performance by her young daughter and the mothers of the other girls prevent them from socializing with Cathy's daughter. Cathy's husband is also furious. Cathy goes to find Raymond to tell them that their friendship isn't "plausible."
Over the Christmas and New Year's holidays, Cathy goes on a vacation with her husband to Miami to take their minds off of things. At the hotel, Frank has another sexual encounter with a young man.
Back in Hartford, three white boys taunt and assault Raymond's daughter, Sarah. Frank tells Cathy that he has found a man who loves him and wants to be with him and seeks a divorce from Cathy. When Cathy eventually finds out that the victim of the attack was Raymond's daughter, Sarah, she goes to the Deagan home to find them packing up in preparation to move to Baltimore. At one point when he addresses her as "Mrs. Whitaker", she begs him to call her Cathy. She suggests they can be together now that she is to be single. Raymond declines, saying "I've learned my lesson about mixing the two worlds." Ultimately, Cathy goes to the train station to see Raymond off and say her silent goodbye to him, waving to him as the train moves out of the station.

Tags: romantic, neo noir, queer

Review:
Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven, a homage to the 1950s melodramas of Douglas Sirk, is an exquisitely crafted film of beauty and grace.
The world that Haynes creates is so meticulously detailed that one almost forgets that the movie isn't fifty years old.Julianne Moore deserves an Academy Award for her portrayal of Cathy Whitaker, a homemaker whose idyllic life begins to disintegrate when she learns that her husband is gay.
At the end of the film Cathy has no illusions, and realizes that the life that she thought was perfect is actually a never-ending hell.Dennis Quaid is equally stunning as Cathy's tortured husband Frank.
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.
`Far From Heaven' is a total artistic triumph for writer/director Todd Haynes, who has, among other things, provided the most brilliant examination of the codes and values of the 1950's that I have ever seen in a film.
In true '50's fashion, Frank, when Cathy catches him in the act with another man, decides to seek `treatment' from a therapist, in the vain hope that he will be `cured' of his `problem.' These scenes are a jolting and stark reminder of just how far we've come from the days when this unenlightened viewpoint held sway in society.
When this relationship is noticed by the townspeople, the ugly realities of bigotry and prejudice come to the fore, proving that, even in a place like Connecticut, where no actual laws segregated blacks from whites, the attitudes of the common citizenry were no more enlightened than those that permeated the Deep South.In a stroke of genius, Haynes has patterned his film after actual 1950's melodramas, particularly those by director Douglas Sirk, whose movies like `Imitation of Life' and `Magnificent Obsession' provided daring (for the times) studies of social issues like racism and May/December romances within the context of what were, essentially, glossy, visually palatable soap operas.
`Far From Heaven' looks exactly like those films, from the color-splashed autumnal setting to the picture-perfect interiors of an upper-middle class home in suburban New England where familial and personal problems appear as out of place as `Leave it to Beaver' would seem if it were on network TV today.
If nothing else, `Far From Heaven' is a study of the kind of emotional and psychological damage that can be inflicted on an individual when a society encourages repression and conformity at all costs.As Cathy, Julianne Moore gives a performance that can be called nothing less than overwhelming.
Yet, his work here also has a quieter quality, particularly in the subtle piano riff, which reminds us quite a bit of his classic score for `To Kill a Mockingbird.' As a director, Haynes shows himself in total control of his medium, blending all these elements into a complete and satisfying whole.`Far From Heaven' is really unlike any movie you have ever seen, a fascinating admixture of the old and the modern.
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.
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).
Fine acting.Director Todd Haynes allowed Moore and Quaid to make their roles real, involving, and anguished and funny in turn.
Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) has it all, a handsome husband (Dennis Quaid), Two wonderful children (Ryan Ward & Lindsay Andretta), a loyal housekeeper (Viola Davis) and her close best friend (Patricia Clarkson).
All of Haynes' energy has gone towards recreating the details and trappings of a past era of (let's face it) relatively minor film making, and there's no energy left to imbue the characters with power, believability or any trace of interior life.
And you're left confused, embarrassed and more than little bit irritated.FAR FROM HEAVEN is a detailed recreation of a very specific type of drama from the 1950's: a high-gloss, emotion-on-the-sleeve "women's picture" wherein everything has the rich Technicolor tone of an ad for refrigerators or hair care products from out of the pages of LIFE, LOOK or the Ladies' Home Journal of that era.
And therein lies the problem with FAR FROM HEAVEN: instead of being an honest exploration of the themes of bigotry and homophobia, it only seems to trivializes it's own intentions, without even a fig leaf of satire to disguise it's failure.Julianne Moore is charming in the lead role, but you have to be willing to accept the idea that she is sophisticated enough to understand her husband's closet homosexuality on one hand, yet be so naive that she doesn't realize that running around town and socializing with a black man is a no-no, even in the relatively liberal setting of suburban Connecticut.
Nolie from South Africa said it much better in His/Her review a few days back "exquisite to look at but more than a little flat" and "stolid affected version of Pleasantville for the faux Hollywood cineast crowd, people in love with themselves as much as the film makers are in love with their product" I grew up in the fifties and their was more REAL drama going on in my neighborhood and in the lives of my family and my neighbors in a single afternoon than in the entirety of this "FILM"..
Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore in a radiant, profoundly sensitive performance) is the picture perfect, carefully groomed, crinolined wife of successful Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid), mother of two just right children, and plastic hostess for parties that include her proper friends - such as Eleanor Fine (Patricia Clarkson).
As Close to Heaven as Movies Can Get. Writer/director Todd Haynes makes a 1950s Douglas Sirk melodrama filtered through the cultural perceptions of the 21st Century.But what Haynes put on screen was far more than a film student exercise, or a simple pastiche of a recognizable genre.
Though the early scenes of the film take a jokey approach to setting up the 1950s suburban milieu, Haynes has far more on his mind than simply poking fun at the time period.
Julianne Moore's performance as a housewife who sees her world shatter when she finds her husband (Dennis Quaid) in the arms of another man brings to mind Jane Wyman's in "All That Heaven Allows," one of this film's primary inspirations, but it's no mere retread.
Quaid, while perhaps having an easier character to play, gives a fierce performance as a man whose struggles with his inner demons are so intense that they manifest themselves almost physically in his face and demeanor.A lot of criticism has been leveled at the film for its treatment of the character of Raymond (Dennis Haysbert), the black gardener with whom Moore strikes up first a friendship and then a forbidden romance.
In context, it works.On top of the terrific performances and Haynes's meticulous direction, the film is visually stunning, with cinematography and color-coordinated costumes that are used alternately to highlight the harmony and dissonance of a world that looks perfect but isn't.
At times, giggling about sex, a curse or the way Quaid sidles into a gay bar reminds you that this isn't your mother's '50s melodrama.While so much of the movie is understated, I found the treatment of racism to be overstated, at least for the north.I was born in 1957, so I can't say "I was there so I remember."  Certainly, the smirky remarks at Kathy's party were heard for years beyond 1957, even in the north.
It was the public expression of racism, particularly the scene where a white man calls Raymond "boy" that seemed really out-of-place for the time and place.Haynes might have made the movie a little more interesting would have   been if Kathy assumes people will shun and talk about her if she gets involved with Raymond - if most of the "melodrama" was internal.
Moore's character, Cathy, became so annoying during the course of the movie that when a physical altercation erupted between her and her husband..I was actually cheering.The writers may have wanted wanted to portray her as "innocent" of the cruel facts around her, such as her homosexual husband and the social outcry against her attraction to a man of color, which sets up a very complex plot but that's as far as it gets.
It is set in an upscale Connecticut suburb in 1957 where the wife (Julianne Moore in an Oscar-worthy (wait, that's a knock on Moore) performance as Cathy Whitaker, balancing a sweet good-natured, genuinely nice personality with her interest in fairness and equality for all which in reality is not embraced by all the suburban housewives of the city) of a company executive (Dennis Quaid as Frank Whitaker with some of the self-destructive ease which characterizes the cynicism of the deceptively progressive social values of suburbanites in the '50s) comes to differ, however minimally, with a prominent socialite, Eleanor Fine, played with suave cynicism by Patricia Clarkson.
Julianne Moore is a great actor, and I love Patty Clarkson, and Dennis Haysbert and Dennis Quaid aren't bad either, but they're all wasted in this silly movie.
And psychiatrist James Rebhorn assures him that great strides have been made in treating homosexuals.Quaid can stay in the closet as 98% of gays did at the time, but this little revelation sends Moore looking for the understanding company of Dennis Haysbert who is a widower raising a small daughter.
Of course, this is a deliberate choice, portraying life as if it was taken straight out of those old movies with smiling wives getting dinner ready just in time for dad whose coming from work, greeted by their two lovely children.The problem is, since everything is so artificial and "fake" it's impossible to feel for Moore's desperate housewife.
The acting was awful, the plot was recycled cliche and the dialogue was predictable and embarrassing.The only good thing this movie had was the cinematography (at times) and the use of colors (which, while it was lush and gorgeous it certainly was void of meaning, as opposed to Paul Thomas Anderson's usage in Punch Drunk Love).Moore is fake, Quaid is nonexistent and Haysbert is simplistic.
Haynes follows that formula but inserts themes that Sirk couldn't have gotten away with (mainly homosexuality).In 1957 housewife Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) comes to realize her husband (Dennis Quaid) is gay.
Since his efforts aren't these kind of "comment outside of the drama" Brechtian productions (save GOLDMINE a bit, with its well-documented CITIZEN KANE-like structure) I take his pieces for the emotional melodramas they are.I wanted to cry for Julianne Moore's character in FAR FROM HEAVEN but I just couldn't do it...
I experienced her story from a safe distance because the rococo dialogue and the stakes of social alienation her character and the Haysbert's character faced didn't engage me (no matter that some of those stakes still exist in the world today, truth be told.)Every effort seemed devoted to making the whole production "just like it was back then" much like the Sirk film, ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS.
In 1957, the Whitaker are the classic American family: Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid) is the beloved successful provider husband and Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) is the perfect mother and housewife.
The remarkable performance of the always magnificent Julianne Moore, very well supported by the excellent Dennis Quaid and Dennis Haysbert, and having a sharp direction and a wonderful photography in a marvelous reconstitution of a period make this movie outstandingly good.
There is detail in the work of Moore, Quaid, and Haysbert (look closely at the almost imperceptible change in Raymond's eyes as Kathy bids him farewell outside the movie theatre) - but there is just as much drama in the film's stunning cinematography, and in its bold use of lighting and colour, including the beautiful costumes.
FAR FROM HEAVEN is just like any classic Douglas Sirk film from the '50s (see LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN), but better, because the viewer is not asked to feel emotional connection with characters who, we all know, just never existed.
For someone who is fond of Douglas Sirk's melodramas,"far from Heaven " is cause for celebration.Todd Haynes does not recreate an era (the late fifties) he recreates an era as those brilliant tear jerkers used to show it.Not only Julianne Moore's hairdo,the names in the cast and credits in pastel colors,or the very first picture (which is also the last one)...but also the story.For Douglas Sirk's lover will have a wonderful time : hints about "all that Heaven allows" and "Imitation of life" abound.Patricia Clarkson's character (Eleanor) is the good woman who never lets her friends down like Agnes Moorehead's in "All that..".
The exhibition where Raymond is not the welcome is the equivalent of the party where the gardener (Rock Hudson) ,Cary Scott(Jane Wyman)'s new friend is despised by all the guests.The scene when the boys throw stones on Raymond's daughter makes me think of that scene in "imitation of life (1959)" where a fair-haired boy (Troy Donahue) beats Sarah Jane (Susan Kohner) (the first names are almost the same)because he has discovered she is a black girl who wants to pass for a white one.Beyond Douglas Sirk: when you compare Douglas Sirk's version of "imitation of life" with John Stahl's (and Fannie Hurst's book) ,you realize how much Sirk was actually reactionary,in spite of his huge talent: Hurst 's Delilah and Peola were given "white " names :Annie and Sarah Jane .Whereas Delilah was some kind of partner for Bea (Claudette Colbert),Annie becomes Lora's (Lana Turner) servant whose only ambition is to have a luxury funeral.Todd Haynes ,while paying a tribute to Sirk ,transcends his paternalistic side :his Raymond has nothing to do with Annie :he's educated,he has a dream,like Luther King,and he will soon turn into an activist .And -even if their relationship remains platonic- he loves a white woman (it's a long way to Kramer's "Guess who's coming to dine" where a white bubble head girl wanted to marry a black future Nobel prize)All that concerns Dennis Quaid and his gay relationships are given a very discreet treatment.In the late fifties ,homosexuality was still a taboo subject ("Suddenly last summer" (1959) "the children's hour" (1961)) and the Hayes code would not have allowed the (very brief) nudities Haynes films.Quaid is extraordinary in the scene when he cries in Moore's arms.But the whole cast is to praise.If you do not know Douglas Sirk and if you like this film,I would never recommend enough (despite the reservations expressed above)"all that heaven allows" " imitation of life" "magnificent obsession" and "written on the wind".
Even supposedly dear and close friends, such as the delicious Patricia Clarkson, back away from a woman who has dared to break a taboo and enjoy friendship that crosses the color bar.The film's performances are faultless; the art direction is dead on from the furniture to the cars to the company logo in Quaid's office; the direction and writing are first class; the ravishing cinematography and lush score are achingly evocative of Lana Turner movies of the period; even the titles echo melodramas by Douglas Sirk.
Julianne Moore (blonde rather than red-haired here) gives an outstanding performance as the liberal-minded but socially naive Cathy Whitaker, while Dennis Quaid is excellent as her sexually troubled husband Frank.This is a movie which is close to heaven as far as talent and skill are concerned, even if the issues examined are at times somewhat hellish..
One of the midday movies I most remember from being home at times sick with asthma, was the Douglas Sirk film All That Heaven Allows (made in my birth year 1955).
I can tell you all this because, although Far From Heaven (written and directed by Todd Haynes) pays homage to the Sirk film, the plots are only scantly related.
The great similarity is in the intensity of the characterdevelopment, the emotive strength of the screenplay and the visual stark clarity (even though I only ever saw All That Heaven Allows in black and white).In `Far From Heaven' the main character Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) is a text book housewife - not finding life perfect, but doing everything she's been taught in support of her husband and in caring for her kids.
I strongly resist weeping at cinemas, but in one scene I was amazed to find several tears stream from the outside corner of my right eye - and less than a second later tears trickled from the corresponding eye of Cathy Whitaker.Far From Heaven is memorable for doing what I believe good cinema should achieve - taking the viewer effortlessly to the time and place of the characters, giving them life and substance and, in an entertaining manner, allowing a window to experiences and emotions..
Although nowhere near as bad as Mulholland Drive which every intellectual praised simply because it was different and confusing, Far From Heaven is painfully slow in developing, every major plot point is clearly evident 20 minutes before it happens, and the ending leaves you wanting back the 1 hour and 40 minutes you just wasted on the film.Yes, great performance by Julianne Moore, wonderful set direction and cinematography...but that does not a great movie make.
The central figure, Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) finds her picture-perfect life as a society-pages housewife gradually unravel as her husband struggles with his homosexual feelings and she innocently steps over the color line in her interactions with her black gardener, Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert).