Cheap Far From Heaven (DVD) (Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert) (Todd Haynes) Price

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Customer Reviews of Far From Heaven

Julianne Moore plays Cathy Whitaker, a homemaker with a seemingly perfect life -- successful businessman husband, 2 kids, great house, hired help, coterie of friends, etc. But all that begins to unravel as 1957 approaches and Cathy discovers that her husband (Dennis Quaid) has a secret that could destroy the life they've built together. When she turns to her black landscaper (Dennis Haysbert) for friendship and comfort, she finds her acquaintances and neighbors are not very enlightened about race relations. Like the films to which it pays tribute, Far From Heaven presents an idyllic setting populated by people making big choices at dramatic moments, living lives in stark contrast to their surroundings. The couple's children are invisible and easily disposed of -- "Watch the children, would you, Sybill?" -- in an era pined for by particular conservatives but remembered by many of us as a time of genteel sordidness and ugly hypocrisy, when race, gender, sexuality, legitimacy, income, career, kith, kin and company neatly boxed off your expected behavior, some were far more equal than others, and tolerance was not listed in anyone's book of virtues.

This is a quiet film about appearances, restraint and social pressure. On first viewing it, I enjoyed it but didn't think it was brilliant, though I loved the over-the-top look of the film, so to me it succeeded more as an homage than as a film in its own right. And committed tribute it is -- with the look, the sets, the shots, the plot, the music, that never veer from their inspiration. I did come to appreciate the film more on watching the accompanying features and listening to the director's commentary.

Sets and costumes are sumptuous and the lighting is quite dramatic, darker than West Wing with pools of emerald and cobalt lights saturating nearly every interior shot. It's jarring to watch the making-of feature and see that these scenes were filmed in normal light during the day. Most of the exteriors were shot in gorgeous New Jersey locations. NB: note the films being played at the local theatre at different points in the film.

DVD extras include a commentary track by Haynes, a Q&A with Haynes and Julianne Moore (who was pregnant during shooting), a trailer, brief production notes, cast & director info, an 11-1/2 minute making-of feature, and the Sundance Channel's Anatomy of a Scene which featured the Whitaker's party scene, a social climax marked by confrontational undercurrents. The film can be heard in English or French, and subtitles are available in English, French or Spanish.

This would be a lovely double feature with All that Heaven Allows or Magnificent Obsession.

The dark side of Father Knows Best
If you've been around long enough to remember those 50s shows like "Father Knows Best", you'll remember how perfect life for the American WASP middle class was depicted as being. Perfect father, mother, marriage, children (or at least reasonably well behaved), job (for Dad - Mom stayed home), house, schools, and neighborhood. If there was a dark side, it didn't extend further than one of the Anderson kids complaining about having to help set the perfect table for the perfect home-cooked dinner. America had single-handedly won WWII (what Eastern Front?) and was keeping the world safe for democracy. Ike was President, and life was grand. For those of us who lived even a close approximation, it was.

FAR FROM HEAVEN begins just that way. Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid) and his All-American blonde wife Cathy (Julianne Moore) - the high school cheerleader/prom queen sort who probably married right after graduation - own a perfect (and huge) home in a perfect neighborhood of Hartford, CN where you can't see the perfect neighbors for all the trees (gloriously clothed in perfect fall colors). The Whitakers have two perfect kids, and Frank manages the local office of mighty Magnatech. It's 1957, and when the Whitaker boy says "Oh, gee!", Mom reprimands him for his bad language. Frank wears a suit, tie and hat; Cathy wears full skirts and is perfectly coifed. In this all-white world, the only Blacks are the perfect housekeeper Sybil (Viola Davis) and the perfect gardener Ray (Dennis Haysbert). But there's a flip side.

In the film's leading role, Moore turns in an Oscar-worthy performance as the 50s-perfect wife whose perfect life implodes on the day she discovers hubby, ostensibly working late, in his office passionately kissing another man. And she's so pathetically grateful when Frank reluctantly consents to undergo psychiatric treatment. But then, in her growing loneliness, she befriends Ray, who's just taken over his deceased father's yard maintenance business. Ray is educated, sensitive, soft-spoken, gentle, and the single father of a young daughter. One day, Cathy accepts Ray's offer to take her on a short errand out of town to pick up some shrubs. On the way back, they stop for lunch at a roadhouse. Cathy is seen exiting Ray's truck by a local gossip, who soon pours gasoline on the smoldering racism of the Whitakers' neighbors. Even Cathy's best friend Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson) is appalled. Finally, thinking all is at least approaching right again with Frank (who's undergoing that therapy, remember?), off Cathy and her troubled spouse go for an idyllic winter vacation in Miami, a place peopled with handsome young men. Oh oh, big mistake.

In a role very different from the congenial characters recently played in FREQUENCY and THE ROOKIE, Quaid is darkly effective as the tortured Frank. And Haysbert is perhaps another Denzel Washington in the making. The "look" of the film is superb, recreating the fashion, cars, home and office decor, and technology of the period to an uncanny degree.

FAR FROM HEAVEN gives the viewers a glimpse at the dark side of an ideal time perhaps existing only in nostalgia and Norman Rockwell prints. It presages the turmoil and changes in a society on the verge of irrevocable evolution. For American audiences, this deserves to be a great film. For foreign audiences who didn't share in America's 50s bounty, it may be something less, but at least they can see where we come from.

Kindly Pass the Emetic
For the first hour I thought this was an incredibly beautiful re-creation of an extinct genre. For the second hour I thought this was one of the worst films ever made. The unfortunate thing about this movie is that the glorious first hour is used as a launching point towards what amounts to an unending sermon about political correctness.

Twenty years or so ago a movie like this might have been regarded as cutting edge, and deservedly so. Now, it's just a sorry anachronism, in a double-sense of the word. It's an anachronism not only because it employs a dead genre. It's also OLD-FASHIONED because there have been so many films which have tackled these themes in infinitely more courageous ways. Nowadays, there's nothing daring or interesting about making a film like this. It's just incredily boring.

God, I hated this movie!

Then again, the movie also has my grudging admiration for patronizing, within the time-span of less two hours, three distinct demographical entities: heterosexual upper-middle class whites, blue collar blacks, and homosexuals.

Is there another movie in history that has managed to patronize all three sub-groups within the same film, and yet comes out saying nothing original? While I admit this is genius, it's not the sort of genius I generally admire.