Review:

Film "Far From Heaven"

By John Frame (1 February, 2003)

Far From Heaven (2002) www.farfromheavenmovie.com/

Director & Writer: Todd Haynes

Actors: Julianne Moore as Cathy Whitaker, Dennis Quaid as Frank Whitaker, Dennis Haysbert as Raymond Deagan

One of the midday movies I most remember, being home from school at times sick with asthma, was the Douglas Sirk film All That Heaven Allows (made in my birth year 1955). It’s a very dramatic romance in which Jane Wyman’s recently widowed society character discovers true love with a handsome but very green-collar nurseryman, played by the stunningly attractive Rock Hudson. She accedes to pressure from her snooty university aged son and daughter to drop her lover – but they have no concern at all for her well being, only for the family’s reputation. I remember my disgust as they then announce to their mother that they’re both leaving home to seek their personal fortunes, but to keep her company in their absence, they present her with a marvelous new invention - a television (some substitute for a real-life Rock Hudson!).

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 character development, 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. Cathy believes she’s “in love” with her husband, and that Frank (Dennis Quaid) is just as much “in love” with her. Their sex-life had been declining, but she wasn’t complaining – everything else in life was fine. However Frank has reached a point in his life where the repression of his homosexual desires is taking a toll on his health and well-being.

In the fifties there were no gay support groups, and the medical professions were still treating homosexuality as a potentially curable illness – it was also illegal sexual activity and therefore prime stuff for a society scandal.

Cathy is an inherently good and non-judgmental person. She gives hubby every chance to get his act together while she strives to keep the family unit intact. Unfortunately her increasingly intimate friendship with Raymond (Dennis Haysbert), the family’s handsome and compassionate black gardener gets noticed by one of Hartford, Connecticut’s biggest gossips. Connecticut is in the heartland of 50’s segregation and soon everyone is talking.

Dennis Quaid, still looking beautiful and fit, does a great job as a man who has given his all in playing by society’s rules. He’s a good man who had fooled around with other men when he was young, but who thought he could substitute that desire with enough work and commitment. Frank has done enough sex with men, but is shocked when he finds that he has actually fallen in love – it’s a powerful revelation both physically and emotionally. I know this to be a real life experience for many gay (and not bisexual) men who had thought the intimate friendship they felt with their wives was as good as “being in love” would ever get. Todd Haynes has developed Frank to be a very realistic character – and those in the know will acknowledge that fact.

I enjoyed every aspect of Far From Heaven and appreciate the way I was able to share the emotions of the two main characters as they discover new aspects of love. 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, saw similar reluctanct tears trickle 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.