Far from Heaven (2002) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Todd Haynes

Starring:  Julianne Moore, Dennis Haysbert, Dennis Quaid, Patricia Clarkson, James Rebhorn, Viola Davis, Celia Weston

Writer-director Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven is a movie you would swear was released in 1957 by its look, texture, and atmosphere, but unlike melodramas made at that time, Far from Heaven delves more deeply into the taboos at which the older movies only hinted.   The subjects in question are interracial love and homosexuality, both of which are thrust into the life of well-off suburban wife and mother Cathy Whitaker (Moore).  

As Far from Heaven opens, Cathy's husband Frank (Quaid) leaves the office one night and sneaks into a gay bar.   His body language and behavior are that of a paranoid petty criminal as he seeks out a one-night stand, and for good reason.  Cathy is at their home in their idyllic world tending to their two children with help from their loyal maid Sybil (Davis), with no clue of Frank's tendencies except that he's not as willing or able to make love to her as he used to.  Cathy excuses that as work-related stress until one evening when Frank is at the office late, she brings Frank dinner and witnesses him kissing another man.  Cathy is crushed, naturally, but she and Frank grasp at straws in an attempt to save their marriage and "cure" Frank of his homosexuality through therapy.

However, even the doctor tasked with Frank's conversion tempers the couple's optimism by stating that such measures result in a low success rate.   Frank talks about "wanting to beat this thing" as if it were cancer, but even he knows there is no putting this genie back in the bottle.  Meanwhile, Cathy finds herself drawn to her new gardener Raymond (Haysbert), the son of Cathy's gardener who recently died.  Raymond is a kind, sensitive, handsome man whose only handicap in the eyes of society is that he is black.  Cathy and Raymond become friends and could possibly become more in a different era, but once a friend of Cathy's spots she and Raymond going into a restaurant together, the gossip starts churning and Cathy denies such a meeting when confronted by Frank.  

It isn't just the white people in town who disapprove of Cathy and Raymond's friendship.  The blacks at the restaurant also treat Raymond, a regular, coldly when they see him with Cathy.  As Frank falls in love with another man and Raymond is forced to move to Baltimore after his daughter is attacked by three white boys, we see Cathy alone with her world crumbling around her.   Far from Heaven makes it clear that Cathy's happiness was only on the surface, as the movie makes everything look beautiful and radiant, with the sadness beneath the beauty.   We don't sense Far from Heaven is trying to wedge in contemporary viewpoints on the past, but the movie absorbs us as it's happening, and we sort out the details and emotions later.   

From a production standpoint, Far from Heaven has the look and feel of the period it presents down to Elmer Bernstein's score.  Haynes doesn't present this story as parody, satire, or even with a wink, but almost like a long-lost movie that was made in 1957, but premiered in 2002.