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Far From Heaven
by Daniel Kasman
reviewed June 28, 2002
www.d-kaz.com

In Far From Heaven Julianne Moore plays Cathy Whitaker, a 1950s mother of two and wife of Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid), a prominent executive at a television company. The Whitakers live in Hartford, Connecticut and exist in what is understood as a typical 50s world in a typical 50s town. Things, as any viewer would probably assume, are not quite as glossy, colorful and lively as this lavish production would have it seem. When Cathy discovers Frank at his office in the arms of another man a crack forms in Cathy’s world, a small rupture in her conception of what her life should be like. Trying to push aside the colossal importance of Frank’s infidelity Cathy subsequently tries to help her fix her husband scientifically. Frank, who embodies a 1950s attitude towards homosexuality and finds his desires despicable, goes to see a doctor with his wife and they are both convinced that Frank’s homosexuality can be cured with the ridiculous pseudoscience of the time. But aftershocks of Frank’s indiscretion quietly ripple through Cathy and she becomes distanced from her own world, isolated in the knowledge that her husband has quietly breached a societal norm.

Cathy absently drifts through the motions of her life, deeply emotionally struck but without self-awareness of why, and she finds strange solace in the comforting understanding of her black gardener Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert). Raymond notices from Cathy’s face that she has been deeply affected, and they share a quite moment of understanding. As Frank’s “treatment” leads to drunkenness and rage, Cathy is slowly attracted to Raymond’s assured knowledge of the world and his place in it. Though strictly a platonic relationship, there are deep rustlings of attraction between the two and as Raymond helps comfort Cathy she becomes aware, or at least semi-aware, that Raymond’s perfection as a person is hampered by the fact he is black, and Cathy remarks that she cannot understand what it must be like to be an outsider. For a number of reasons, including playing off Cathy’s comment, Raymond takes Cathy to an all black club to dine, and she is touched by the gesture and ends up dancing with him. But this is the 1950s and a local gossip spies Cathy with Raymond together and talk spreads quickly. While Frank’s closet homosexuality goes ignored or unseen by the town Cathy’s horrific breach of racial lines once again cuts her off from an understanding world, in a different kind of social isolation than the kind she felt in the black diner. She is left distraught between a husband who is deteriorating into an “incurable” state of homosexuality, and the one person who could possibly empathize with her, but whom she must stay away from because of 50s small town racial mores.

Unfortunately for the casual viewer Far From Heaven comes with a heavy burden of cinematic history on its back. Director Todd Haynes is paying homage to, and commenting on the melodramas 1950s, and especially the films of Douglas Sirk who made several melodramas that used the genre to subvert the image of American life in such films as All That Heaven Allows and Whispers In the Wind. In fact a large portion of the plot of Far From Heaven is borrowed from the 1955 Sirk film All That Heaven Allows where wealthy widow Jane Wyman has a scandalous affair with her gardener played by Rock Hudson. Thus a dialog is created between these films decades apart, and between Far From Heaven and the classic melodrama genre in general. Especially interesting is how Haynes, while making a film so indebted to the 50s melodrama genre, decides to simultaneously tackle race and homosexuality in his expose, something films in the 50s would never touch. Having seen only two Sirk films, and having an utter lack of familiarity with the genre Haynes is both aping and analyzing, I am sadly missing a large portion of the content that hides itself behind the colorful, melancholy surface drama of Far From Heaven. It is deeply regrettable because the film resonates so powerfully, and is strongly affecting despite the fact there is obviously an entire side to the film that I, and probably a large portion of the film’s audience, am completely blind to.

Forgoing its heavy cinematic background, Far From Heaven bares a strong resemblance to Wong Kar Wai’s 60s Shanghai love story In The Mood For Love. Opulent visuals, glowing compositions and eye popping dramatic lighting in each film mark the importance of the characters’ surroundings. But where In The Mood For Love’s cramped stairwells, crowded apartments and dense, smoky alleys forced each small movement of its characters to be of deep importance, the suburban 50s town life in Far From Heaven contains so much space that the compositions and the characters are primarily ruled by the stuff that fills all that wide space. Useless kitschy knickknacks are everywhere, lamps made of posing Chinese women, walls adorned with advertisement posters, television sets are shoved in the corners of rooms, and Cathy Whitaker changes dresses, gloves, and scarves nearly every scene. Hartford sprawls like some kind of quaint, never ending 50s small town. Cathy’s powder blue station wagon seems to travel miles on end, but always ends up parking in Hartford to pick up the kids, or the groceries, or some new clothes. Even when Cathy and Frank take a vacation to Miami the travel is done in a single jump, from Hartford to a Miami hotel in one brisk cut and for all we know the Whitakers stepped off their porch down the street to a place with a pool.

The oppressive atmosphere of the inescapable 50s town goes unnoticed at first, but once Cathy spies on her husband and her world quietly cracks at the seams it is Raymond who draws her away from her routine and her town. He uses his truck to drive Cathy out into the country. Here, far away from Hartford and its whispering gossips, the blindingly orange autumn leaves are not offset by the swooping camera movements in Hartford that use the flora simply to beautify and frame the houses. In Hartford the autumn leaves become just another part of the 50s picture-the lovely two story surrounded by charming foliage-but once outside of the town the leaves overwhelm the frame, consume it and make up for their poor materialized brethren in town.

Out in the country and basking in Dennis Haysbert’s sensitive but firm compassion Cathy can finally feel free from the pressures of her town life. She has been isolated away from the world she knows and it frees her mind and spirit. She connects with Raymond, not just comforted by his words, he also intrigues her as a person. Raymond seems to understand his position in society and is comfortable with it to a degree Cathy could never imagine. On top of seemingly infinite understanding he is also attractive, warm and sweetly sympathetic to Cathy’s newfound confusion. He is a perfect man, except, of course, he is black. Cathy’s intense connection with this man, who is grounded and self-aware in ways she is only beginning to understand, reaches such a level that she franks inquires about his feelings about his race, breaching not only a standard of her society but of a 1950s melodrama.

As they should have expected, returning to Hartford seals the fates of these two people. The town’s discovery of Cathy’s day in the country with the black man disconnects Cathy from her friends and her community, and once again forces her to float around the house worrying, but this time she is more worried about herself than about her husband.

Cathy can come up with no solution to her life because she is not only trapped in an oppressive time she is trapped in an unforgiving genre. The sudden intrusion of Frank’s homosexual life snaps the sleepwalking Cathy into a kind of pseudo self-awareness where she is now partially awake in a town where everyone else is sleeping the dream life of the 50s. Cathy’s self-awareness is purposely confined by the genre of the film, so she only vaguely comprehends her position and her dilemma which explains why she is so drawn to Raymond, who is so sure and understanding of his life and position in society. Raymond too is trapped in a sleepwalking world, and his unwillingness to embrace the smoldering attraction he and Cathy feel sadly speaks to his own confinement in the genre, where he too (like the rest of the cast) can only exist as a character from a melodrama, from the 50s.

This limitation makes Far From Heaven a desperately sad picture. Julianne Moore is dropped down into a character that cannot struggle against the problems brought into her life, and she cannot fully comprehend her feelings for Raymond because Cathy is a part of a 1950s town. Unlike the audience, Moore is forced to have a kind of social tunnel vision and she cannot understand how life in a 1950s town has affected her. Cathy was cruelly shaken awake by her husband’s actions but with everyone else sleeping and with Cathy lacking the ability to comprehend the world she lives in she has no way to rise above it. Julianne Moore’s look of bewildered helplessness is heartbreaking, especially when she is framed in brilliantly colored dresses that warmly speak nothing about her inner turmoil.

The unanimously remarkable performances, including Dennis Quaid’s finest and most affecting work, push the film past being a flawlessly gorgeous reproduction of the melodrama genre. Behind the film lurks not only a deep cinematic history but also a distressing social commentary on the 50s as a time and a subject of film; but brightly standing in front of the many subtexts Far From Heaven is purely an involving, resonating, and emotionally rich melodrama. This is the reason the film is so breathtaking, as it can act as a touching, fascinating, bravura period piece, but lurking behind it are several levels of commentary that can be engaged with viewers depending on their willingness to deconstruct the film and their knowledge of film history. Todd Haynes transcends his film’s main purpose of creating a dialog between melodramas by making a film that in itself is a superbly satisfying example of the genre in question.

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