I don't know if this film has anything all that useful or original to say. We know, or at the very least we've heard that 1950s folks didn't much care for homosexuals and black people. Todd Haynes is certainly not taking any brave new stands in this film. It's a tribute to Sirk, who would never overtly deal with these exact same subjects. But he did make a good study of racial attitudes in Imitation of Life in 1959, so he was no coward. Fortunately, Far From Heaven does manage to work itself up to something quite worthwhile. The film is subtle in the same way as Sirk's were: throwing florid melodrama in your face while secretly depicting the truth under that cloud. Haynes probably wouldn't have succeeded half as well as he did if he weren't working with Julianne Moore and, to a slightly lesser extent, Dennis Quaid. Moore has been a powerhouse actress for more than a decade now, and this could be her strongest performance yet. I might prefer her in Boogie Nights slightly, but this is close. She's great as a sheltered 1950s housewife coming out of her protective shell. Her husband (Quaid) has been fighting his homosexual lust his whole life, and he's beginning to lose the battle. Rejected, Moore befriends her gardener, an educated black man (Dennis Haysbert). It's not love, at least right away. Moore is just enthused to have found someone outside of her own world who understands her and will talk with her in an honest manner. The color cinematography, set design, and costume design are full of transcendent Sirk-influenced colors. Perhaps my favorite aspect of the film is the musical score, by Elmer Bernstein. It would be a shame to see it go without an Academy Award nomination. 8/10.
Review of Far from Heaven
