Far From Heaven

It's charmingly easy to fall into the world that was in the Todd Haynes awe-inspiring new film, Far From Heaven with its grandiose overture, Donna Reed-style dresses and '57 Chevys. At points, I found myself looking longingly at the calculated attire of the modern day Loews' Cineplex and wondering what a similar theater must have looked like fifty years ago.

Through the eyes of a seemingly flawless suburbanite family (especially the fetching housewife), Far From Heaven, explores why the fifties were not as innocent and carefree as Nick-at-Nite would have us think.

Taking place in a singular autumn, Far From Heaven gradually dissects the lives of faltering socialite Cathy(Julianne Moore) and homo-sexually repressed Frank Whitaker(Dennis Quaid). A stereotypical upscale couple from Hartford Connecticut. As far as appearances goes, she has it all: a hardworking and successful husband, a white picket fence house with beige trim, and two children who have the cleanest mouths this side of Disney World. Not far into the film, Cathy is photographed as the ideal wife for a home and garden social magazine.

But the visuals cannot withhold the truth even though their intensity tries: the oranges toy with the hearts desire for warmth, the rich blues wreak of loneliness, and the precious lavender scarf that Cathy almost loses to the wind only foreshadows what's to come.

Her black, misanthropic gardener, Ray Deagen(Dennis Haysbert), finds the scarf amidst the trees and returns it to its flustered owner. Their particular story will bud slowly through the scenes to come, but to the audience's dismay, never blossom. Frank's sexual awakening, on the other hand, will.

Inspired by the 1950's melo-dramas by director Douglas Sirk, including Imitation of Life (1959), Written on the Wind (1956), and especially All that Heaven Allows (1955)_a similar tale with a similar despondent socialite, and inappropriate gardener. Far From Heaven succeeds in its challenge to the movies of old. It ties no ribbons into bows and leaves no sugary happy endings.

It does, however, provoke sympathy pangs, considerable thought racing, and a pulsating silence after its hour and forty-seven minute run.

Because beyond its era, it clanking of the champagne flutes and hidden winks that are devoid in certain modern lives right now, Far From Heaven is honest. It's a rare gem in movies these days. Pleasantville told a similar story, and it told the story well. But amidst the tale of longing and repression there were playful devices that in the end, made everything "okay". Haynes doesn't set out to write a fairytale, yet he succeeds in directing a work of art.

The film's overpowering perfume of love, desire, and guilt transcends even the most stuffy of period sets. Rather, it awakens something so human within its audience that its hard not to emphasize with the characters, even though their particular situations seem somewhat outdated a half century later.

Was there a homosexual protagonist hiding along the back railing biding his time until meeting a lover in the gay bar across the street? Could a mixed couple find solace even in the darkest corner of the theater? Was anyone in this decade as happy as we're told to believe in this time before sex, drugs and rock n' roll infested America?

That's the wonder and drama of the piece_ while their lives themselves seem implausible now, their yearnings and constraints could not feel more tangible.

Admittedly, this movie is not for everyone. It is not light fare. And the issues of race and sexuality are nothing short of shocking.

In the end, that hunger for passion is what the audience is left with while crunching over stale popcorn upon exiting the equally stale theater. The ornate decorations upon the walls of 50's style movie palaces have been bulldozed over with more cost-efficient black walls. Likewise, Cathy and Ray choose the more cost-efficient path, acting in reverence to their children's future.

You could say that no one will ever know the loss they experienced. But we know. Each time we go with friends to a movie and see the old man or woman sitting alone in the back row, we know.