Far From Heaven [HD]

A Cosmetic Facade Cracked by Ugly Realtiy
With FAR FROM HEAVEN, writer-director Todd Haynes meticulously recreates the look and conventions of 1950s "domestic drama"--and then subverts it. Like all domestic drama heroines, Cathy Whittaker (Julianne Moore) is a glamorous woman, and the film finds her married to Frank (Dennis Quaid), a rising executive in television sales. They are the perfect 1950s family: they are upwardly mobile, have two children (a boy and a girl, of course), live in an expensive home in an expensive residential district. One evening, Cathy unexpectedly opens a door--and discovers that Frank is unfaithful to her.

If this were a Douglas Sirk film starring Lana Turner, Cathy would have found Frank in the arms of another woman and done battle with her to save her marriage. But Frank is in the arms of another man, something that falls completely outside Cathy's frame of reference. Desperate to save her marriage, she encourages Frank to see a psychiatrist; unable to confide in her friends lest she provoke a...

Important and Emotionally Compelling
The tremendously talented director Todd Haynes, has created an amazing new film called Far From Heaven. It is the 1950s in Hartford, Connecticut. Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) lives in a perfectly lovely house with a perfectly lovely family. She is a respected and envied member of her community, admired for her liberal mind and successful husband. However, as the film progresses we see trouble brewing between husband and wife. Frank Whitaker ( Dennis Quaid) is coming home later in the evenings and his drinking is slipping out of control. Then Cathy, ever the dutiful wife, walks into Frank's office late one night while delivering his dinner and discovers her husband's horrible secret. The occurrence is such a shocking rupture to their peaceful world that they aren't able to summon the language to articulate it. Instead, they try to carry on as if nothing has changed using the most modern psychological methods to deal with it. But it becomes increasingly obvious that this isn't...

Stairway to Heaven
"Far from Heaven" is Todd Haynes' homage and attempt to recreate what was called, in the 50's and 60's, a "weepie," a domestic melodrama with all the attendant production values: lush musical score, sumptuous costumes and a heroine with big concerns/problems mostly having to do with Love, Family and usually both. Think "Written on the Wind," "Magnificent Obsession" or "All that Heaven Allows." The problem with this kind of a venture is that in order for it to work it must be handled in a non-ironic, straightforward manner. Haynes's and his actors succeed most but not 100% of the time. The very nature of an enterprise like this calls for a somewhat arch and precise acting technique as we are dealing with a dead genre probably farther removed from our 2002 reality than are Shakespeare's plays.
Like the best of these films, "Far from Heaven" can be unbelievably moving; when we are not only marveling at the gorgeous mise en scene but when the superior acting abilities of the amazing...

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