B+Directed by Todd Haynes Starring Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, and Dennis Haysbert Review by Jon Kissel |  |
One of the most indelible images from Mad Men occurred in an episode where Don Draper takes new wife Megan to try out a Howard Johnson chain in upstate New York. He raves about the sherbet, and a serving is brought to Megan in all its unnatural orange glory. The color of the dessert leaps off the screen, though its brightness doesn’t stop Megan from discarding it after a single, disagreeable bite. Those colors are all over a film that may well have inspired Mad Men, Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven. In its 1950’s setting of wealthy Connecticut, the cars are sparkling pastels, the clothes pop with brightness, and the autumn leaves serve as a tourist advertisement, but all the lives contained within are allowed none of this vibrancy. Haynes’ film is both luxurious and repressed, a clenched fist wrapped in silk that skewers northern self-congratulatory liberalism and looks incredible doing it.
Far From Heaven begins as many suburbia films do by establishing a safe and quaint atmosphere and proceeding to puncture every aspect of its assumed idyll. Haynes is telling a story with the old-fashioned font of the opening credits, laid on top of those brightly-colored cards and an Elmer Bernstein score out of a black and white sitcom. The Whitakers, the film’s central family, are introduced with a son who says ‘aw, shucks’ and ‘aw, geez’ if he’s feeling salty, and a daughter who hopes she takes after her mom, if only so she can grow up to be as beautiful as her. Within their wealthy enclave, Cathy (Julianne Moore) and Frank Whittaker (Dennis Quaid) are known as Mr. and Mrs. Magnatech, as he’s a sales executive who puts his wife in the ads he creates. The Norman Rockwell exterior hides a sexless marriage coupled with Frank’s late-night trips through seedier parts of town, where he can find a drink in tucked-away bars and pose ominously under signs proclaiming ‘we promise to satisfy you.’ Cathy finds out about this part of Frank’s life when she surprises him at the office and finds him kissing another man. Frank promises to seek treatment through therapy, but it’s a form of therapy that must exclude Cathy if it’s going to make any progress.
In her loneliness and her shock, Cathy finds solace in conversation with her new handyman, Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert). Taking over for his recently deceased father, who Cathy didn’t know had died, the friendly Raymond appears in the Whitaker’s backyard one afternoon, sending Cathy into a panic in a palpable and unflattering way. She calms down and gets more acquainted with Raymond, who’s also a widower and a college graduate who plans to start a business. Their conversations turn into random encounters around town and then planned ones, sparking whispers and stares from citizens of both races. Despite the approbation, Cathy can’t help but be drawn to an intelligent and well-spoken man who finds her attractive, something she’s been missing for the majority, if not the entirety, of her marriage.
Far From Heaven is nakedly concerned with the suffocating repression found in 1950’s society, but it refrains from speechifying and statements pitched squarely at a 21st century audience. One can feel that Haynes, a gay man, has an intense irritation with 50’s repression but that he also admires the ways the filmmakers of the 50’s and 60’s communicated the absurdity of mid-century social standards despite the censorious restrictions of the time. There’s little here to differentiate it on those terms from a film made decades ago, both in how coyly it plays with fadeouts and in the unsubtle ways it dances around homosexuality without naming it, like an ignorant audience would miss the reference but an in-the-know crowd would snicker and nod.
The racial politics of the film are more angry, since that part can’t be hidden in back rooms and office liaisons. All these rich New Englanders fancy themselves as liberal-minded modern men and women, not like those rubes and racists in the south, though they also think nothing of making jokes about there being no black people to integrate into schools in Connecticut within earshot of their black maids and servants. That a movie like Green Book can pretend that race relations get magically solved past a certain latitude and Far From Heaven can lacerate that thinking sixteen years earlier is an infuriating lack of cultural progress.
In imitating a style of film from an earlier time, Haynes also asks his cast to do the same with their performances. This is especially apparent with Moore, who’s also playing the most performative character. Her Cathy isn’t as naturalistic as Moore’s best performances, but there are many barriers she would need to break for Cathy to get close to an honest place. Her surroundings have made truth impossible, such that when her kids see their dad crying, they react with sheer panic at the release of raw emotion. If Cathy can’t fully voice what she’s feeling, Moore can wear her inner turmoil on her face, which she does in the film’s many longing looks. As her husband, Quaid’s self-hating agony manifests in drunken frustration and impotence. He’s theoretically the film’s most sympathetic character, though the last vestiges of expectation and masculinity drive him toward cruel behavior. Haysbert’s Raymond is the least complicated main character, tasked with exuding goodness so as to put a fine line under how ridiculous all these social restrictions are. He does indeed exude, but it makes him thinner than Cathy or Frank.
In paying homage to suburban melodramas, Haynes creates a throwback that a mid-century moviegoer might find indistinguishable from what’s playing in their time at the local cinema. Far From Heaven looks impeccable and tells an evergreen, compelling story, but Haynes will go on to top himself with Carol, another film from the same time period but one that’s more explicit and emotionally complex. Carol feels like it could only have been made in the modern era by Haynes, and is all the better for it. Far From Heaven is a seamless tribute with some harsh criticism, but as a commentary on a previously existing thing, it’s limited. That said, the tribute is so well-conceived that I feel like I’ve got a handle on everything Haynes is imitating. B+
In her loneliness and her shock, Cathy finds solace in conversation with her new handyman, Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert). Taking over for his recently deceased father, who Cathy didn’t know had died, the friendly Raymond appears in the Whitaker’s backyard one afternoon, sending Cathy into a panic in a palpable and unflattering way. She calms down and gets more acquainted with Raymond, who’s also a widower and a college graduate who plans to start a business. Their conversations turn into random encounters around town and then planned ones, sparking whispers and stares from citizens of both races. Despite the approbation, Cathy can’t help but be drawn to an intelligent and well-spoken man who finds her attractive, something she’s been missing for the majority, if not the entirety, of her marriage.
Far From Heaven is nakedly concerned with the suffocating repression found in 1950’s society, but it refrains from speechifying and statements pitched squarely at a 21st century audience. One can feel that Haynes, a gay man, has an intense irritation with 50’s repression but that he also admires the ways the filmmakers of the 50’s and 60’s communicated the absurdity of mid-century social standards despite the censorious restrictions of the time. There’s little here to differentiate it on those terms from a film made decades ago, both in how coyly it plays with fadeouts and in the unsubtle ways it dances around homosexuality without naming it, like an ignorant audience would miss the reference but an in-the-know crowd would snicker and nod.
The racial politics of the film are more angry, since that part can’t be hidden in back rooms and office liaisons. All these rich New Englanders fancy themselves as liberal-minded modern men and women, not like those rubes and racists in the south, though they also think nothing of making jokes about there being no black people to integrate into schools in Connecticut within earshot of their black maids and servants. That a movie like Green Book can pretend that race relations get magically solved past a certain latitude and Far From Heaven can lacerate that thinking sixteen years earlier is an infuriating lack of cultural progress.
In imitating a style of film from an earlier time, Haynes also asks his cast to do the same with their performances. This is especially apparent with Moore, who’s also playing the most performative character. Her Cathy isn’t as naturalistic as Moore’s best performances, but there are many barriers she would need to break for Cathy to get close to an honest place. Her surroundings have made truth impossible, such that when her kids see their dad crying, they react with sheer panic at the release of raw emotion. If Cathy can’t fully voice what she’s feeling, Moore can wear her inner turmoil on her face, which she does in the film’s many longing looks. As her husband, Quaid’s self-hating agony manifests in drunken frustration and impotence. He’s theoretically the film’s most sympathetic character, though the last vestiges of expectation and masculinity drive him toward cruel behavior. Haysbert’s Raymond is the least complicated main character, tasked with exuding goodness so as to put a fine line under how ridiculous all these social restrictions are. He does indeed exude, but it makes him thinner than Cathy or Frank.
In paying homage to suburban melodramas, Haynes creates a throwback that a mid-century moviegoer might find indistinguishable from what’s playing in their time at the local cinema. Far From Heaven looks impeccable and tells an evergreen, compelling story, but Haynes will go on to top himself with Carol, another film from the same time period but one that’s more explicit and emotionally complex. Carol feels like it could only have been made in the modern era by Haynes, and is all the better for it. Far From Heaven is a seamless tribute with some harsh criticism, but as a commentary on a previously existing thing, it’s limited. That said, the tribute is so well-conceived that I feel like I’ve got a handle on everything Haynes is imitating. B+
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