Imagine the scene. A beautiful housewife, a pastiche of every housewife we have come to imagine as Mrs. America in the 1950s, lives in a cocooned world of happiness and prosperity in Small Town, USA.
You just know right from the start that this is going to end in tragedy.
Julianne Moore, an actress I much admire, plays the perfect Cathy Whitaker, while Dennis Quaid portrays Frank, her handsome, ambitious husband. The Whitakers appear to have it all: two perfect children, the ever-faithful and hard-working black maid, Sybil (Viola Davis), and, above all, a luxurious house with every modern convenience.
In fact, so perfect are they, that they are to be featured in a local magazine as the model family.
Against a backdrop of gleaming contemporary interiors, giggly ladies’ lunches and sophisticated cocktail parties, the couple’s lives unravel in ways that make them the ultimate outcasts in white, heterosexual Connecticut.
For Frank, you see, is a guarding a terrible secret and when his wife discovers him “working late” at the office in the arms of a male colleague, the family’s world is irretrievably shattered. In spite of Frank’s agreement to seek “a cure” for his proclivities, and Cathy’s determination to be liberal and deliver him from temptation, ironically it is on a trip to Miami designed specifically to re-cement their relationship that Frank transgresses once more and, this time, falls in love.
Cathy, meanwhile, has sought solace in a friendship with her black gardener, Raymond, played wonderfully by Dennis Haysbert. Raymond, who has taken over his father’s gardening business, is cultured and educated and shares many interests with Cathy. Their increasing number of appearances together in public scandalise the waspish community and malicious tongues start to wag. The Whitaker children are ostracised at school and Raymond’s daughter is attacked by some white boys on her way home.
Homosexuality and inter-race relations were the ultimate taboos of the 1950s, but I do feel there is something of a mixed message in the film. After all, would it have been OK for Frank to have an affair with a woman and for Cathy to seek comfort in the arms of a white man? Infidelity is infidelity, whichever way you look at it. The implication that if we are liberal minded we should give same sex or inter-racial affairs some sort blanket approval is, quite frankly, absurd.
Nevertheless, the film delivers a powerful reminder about attitudes to race and sexuality that, I suspect, survive in many small communities to this day.
Written and directed by Todd Haynes, the film is an outstanding period piece, with brilliant costumes, sets and lighting, which whisks us back 50 years with utter conviction.
The performances of the entire cast, including supporting players, are outstanding and watching the family crumble from “perfection” to utter dysfunction is completely absorbing
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Production Year: 2000 - Drama - Director: Gregory Hoblit - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Andre Braugher, Jim Caviezel, Noah Emmerich, Dennis Quaid, Shawn Doyle, Elizabeth Mitchell
Production Year: 2004 - Drama - Director: Nick Cassavetes - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over, 12 years and over - Starring: Rachel McAdams, Ryan Gosling, Gena Rowlands
Far from Heavenis a uniquely beautiful film from one of the smartest and most ... more
idiosyncratic of contemporary directors, Todd Haynes (SafeandVelvet Goldmine). It takes the lush 1950s visual style of so-called women's pictures (particularly those of Dougl...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Far from Heavenis a uniquely beautiful film from one of the smartest and most ... more
idiosyncratic of contemporary directors, Todd Haynes (SafeandVelvet Goldmine). It takes the lush 1950s visual style of so-called women's pictures (particularly those of Dougl...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
In the fall of 1957 in Connecticut Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) is returning home from ... more
a day of errands. Her husband Frank (Dennis Quaid) is expected home for a dinner engagement. There's only one problem no one has heard from Frank all afternoo...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
It is the fall of 1957 in Connecticut, Cathy Whitaker is returning home from a day of ... more
errands. Her husband, Frank is expected home for a dinner engagement. There's only one problem, no one has heard from Frank all afternoon.What begins as a curious sna...
Advantages: Moore, cinematography, moving, melodrama (if that's a good thing) Disadvantages: wooden acting, stylized, melodrama (if you're not into that)
OKkaraoke 13.06.2003 (13.06.2003)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Far From Heaven (DVD)
Advantages: 1950's Slice-of-life, realistic, thought provoking, the acting, the location, the script, etc. Disadvantages: Time seems to move a bit strangely at points in this movie, some may say that its a bit of a satire of itself
TheChocolateLady 11.01.2003 (24.03.2003)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Far From Heaven (DVD)
Advantages: 1950's Slice-of-life, realistic, thought provoking, the acting, the location, the script, etc. Disadvantages: Time seems to move a bit strangely at points in this movie, some may say that its a bit of a satire of itself
TheChocolateLady 11.01.2003 (24.03.2003)
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Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Far From Heaven (DVD)
![Far From Heaven [DVD] [2003]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/78502395.jpg "Far From Heaven [DVD] [2003]")
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