Far From Heaven Review
by Tim Wick
The camera pans down through leaves colored gold and orange and it is beautiful. The world of Far From Heaven is a world where it always seems to be fall. I'm reminded of another movie - Ordinary People - where the leaves were falling from the trees. Fall is beautiful, but those leaves are beautiful because they are dying.
Far From Heaven is set in 1957 suburbia. Julianne Moore is Cathy Whitaker, the perfect housewife for an idyllic age. Her world is colored the same way the trees that surround her house are. Oranges, reds, yellows are all perfectly blended in her hair, her clothes, her face. But her life, like those leaves, is about to come crashing to the ground. To reflect the analagy more closely, it is more appropriate to say that her life will drift away from the life she expected.
This is a movie about the world beneath the world we expect. Much like Pleasantville, the perfection of this world is a lie. Everything is perfect so long as we all conform to a certain standard of public - and private - behavior. The moment we stray from that standard, we must either return or be discarded.
Because the film is set in 1957, it is dealing with social taboos that seem only too disturbing. A white woman speaking to a black man in public is seen as a scandal. People start to "talk" but there is nothing to talk about except the fact that blacks and whites aren't supposed to mix. In our more "enlightened" age, such a concept is very nearly laughable. Perhaps it is more appropriate to think that prejudice is no longer fashionable. Where once it was the bigoted that could speak their views openly, they must now choose when and where to express themselves.
But just because bigotry is a "fringe" element doesn't mean it has gone from our world. As long as there are differences between people - some visible and some not - there will be those who view their own personal set of traits as superior to others.
It is shocking, however, to look at a time not yet 50 years past (only ten years before I was born) when such attitudes were the norm. Friends were supportive of you until you confirmed that you did indeed treat black people kindly simply because you did not see a reason to do otherwise.
This is a film about hypocracy and secrets. Cathy's husband Frank (Dennis Quaid) has a secret that has the potential to tear their lives apart. His secret is so scandalous that they cannot even call it by it's real name. Yet for all the shame he feels, he throws a fit when he discovers that Cathy has made friends with a black man.
I'm dancing around a lot of points because this film is easily spoiled. If one knows the direction the film will take, it may lose some of it's potency. I knew a great deal going in and while I truly enjoyed the film, I would have enjoyed it more had I known less.
Julianne Moore is a true cinematic treasure. Her skill has often been in playing vulnerable, fragile characters in such films as Boogie Nights and Magnolia. Cathy would appear to be much the same but there is a compassion and a strength in her that transcends the outward appearance. The film suggests that while the idyllic surface hides great pain and dark secrets, it also hides more strength than anyone would suspect. Moore underplays the role to perfection. We see ripples of her true emotions run across her face before the mask is replaced.
Quaid is an actor I have always enjoyed. His naturalistic style makes him adapt quite easily to many different roles. While most movie roles make extensive use of his boyish smile, Far From Heaven is not about a man who spends a lot of time smiling. Instead, it is about a man who spends his time fighting with himself in a battle he cannot possibly win.
The relationship between the Whitakers is strained but never in public. The use of the F word is an explosive shock. The politeness with which this family falls apart is somewhat disturbing. We think there should be some lamp throwing or some broken china. Instead, the make-up is always perfect and a new hairstyle covers a bruise.
I don't know that Far From Heaven is a direct allegory to anything now. I think that it is instead a reminder of who we were not so very long ago. It is a reminder that our rosy-eyed view of the past is commonly only rosy so long as we are sheltered from the facts.
First time writer/director Todd Haynes has produced something remarkable. This is a film about taboos and about breaking them. It is not a cheerful movie in the sense that the world he leaves behind is not so much changed from the world we first encountered. But it is a cheerful movie in the sense that we can look at the world we live in now and think that we have, perhaps, made just a little bit of progress.
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