Far From Heaven

A gorgeous riff on Douglas Sirk’s 1950s kleenex-consuming, melodrama classic, All That Heaven Allows, Far From Heaven may be director Todd Haynes’ most linear film to date, but it’s also his most perfect.

Set against a lush, near-permanent autumnal backdrop, in the kind of mythical, end-of-ideology 1950s America where kids are chastised for using such shocking profanities as “Aw Shucks!’, Far From Heaven casts Julianne Moore as a retro-version of her domestically smothered housewife from Safe. She keeps a ‘lovely home’ replete with mahogany furniture, ‘coloured’ maid and aquamarine tablecloths, but finds her dinner parties and reputation jeopardised when her obnoxious husband (Quaid) hits the cruising circuit as he comes to terms with the rather inescapable fact that he is gay.

His sexuality is over-shadowed as a hot topic for suburban gossip though, when his stoical wife forms a tender friendship with her philosophical black gardener (Haysbert), a relationship which prompts the scandalised neighbours to turn very nasty indeed.

After what might very charitably be described as the uneven kaleidoscope of Velvet Goldmine, Haynes has quite simply outdone himself here. Often his films have referenced the classic Hollywood weepies of Sirk and Minnelli, but finally he has a framework to let his melodramatic impulses run riot. If the film’s saturated technicolour is somewhat parodic, though, it’s emotional content is anything but. This is in no small part due to the extraordinarily touching turns from Haysbert and Moore, who is in simply magnificent lip-trembling form for the demanding central role.

Equally impressive is Far From Heaven’s intelligent depiction of society’s intransigent attitudes towards sexuality, class and race – Haynes’ conclusion that a gay couple will have greater ease finding social acceptance than an inter-racial relationhip still holds a chilling relevance.