Criterion Collection: All That Heaven Allows [DVD] [1955] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

This gorgeously melodramatic potboiler was made in the mid-50's just as Jane Wyman's star power was waning and Rock Hudson was becoming a superstar. But All That Heaven Allows is most memorable as a study of small town intolerance, and where it's portrayal of a world that is mostly picture perfect - at least for the inhabitants of Stonington, Connecticut where the movie is set - is nothing more than quaint.

These days All That Heaven Allows is most notable for forming the basis for the brilliant Julianne Moore film Far From Heaven, out a few years ago. Both have the same visual look - white churches, nice homes and beautiful trees - and both films attempt to skewer societal narrow-mindedness. Yet there are obvious differences: Far From Heaven dealt with racial and sexual politics, while this film - keeping mindful of the time it was made - mines the effects of class and economic status.

Carey Scott (Wyman) is a middle-aged widow, living a quietly domestic life in Stonington. She has a lovely home and two devoted children, she's also a pillar of society and cares a lot about her standing in the community. Yet Carey is also a fragile and lonely woman, and there's a part of her that aches for some kind of emotional connection.

She has a number of wealthy men, who routinely court her, but it is Ron Kirby (Rock Hudson) who she is ultimately drawn to, he's a tall, muscular and handsome young man who customarily prunes her trees. Ron is not a dolt; he's a college educated, intuitive and sensitive, but over the years, has learnt to spurn the trappings of society. Uncomplicated and trouble-free, he lacks the phony polish and sophistication of Carey's city friends.

An outdoorsman - Ron lives in a picturesque cabin by a bubbling stream in the country and has lots of artists, writers and has lots of fun loving bohemian friends who regularly come to visit him. Carey seems to represent everything, Ron is rebelling against; however, the two soon fall in love, swept up by their mutual attraction. There initial courtship is tempered by Cary's insecurities - it's not so much the class as the age difference - she is older by a decade.

Problems also arise when Carey's prudish and snobbish children (William Reynolds and Gloria Talbott) turn on her for wanting to marry a gardener, some one of a lower class; they see him as some type of gigolo, a big shot who obviously has no real money of his own, and is content to feed off their mother's wealth. Resistance also comes from Carey's oppressive society ladies. Her best friend Sara (Agnes Moorehead) - while staying loyal to Carey - warns her that there are those on the town who will talk.

Carey's friends pretend to be urbane and classy but they lack refinement. In fact, they're all rather petty and shallow. When Carey invites Ron to one of Sara's soirée's, her guests anxiously stare out the window, waiting for Ron to show up so that they can sink their talons into him - he is their quarry, and thing to be ridiculed, especially by Mona, the town gossip (Jacqueline De Witt).

Wyman and Hudson are both standouts as Carey and Ron; Wyman does a great job of playing this damaged, vulnerable women who has been going through life letting other people - mostly her hypocritical and selfish children - make most of the big decisions for her. And the gorgeous Rock is exemplary as the sophisticated, and extremely good-looking muscle stud who sweeps Carey off her feet with his tender and sensitive side.

All That Heaven Allows is absolutely gorgeous to look at, with director Douglas Sirk bathing the film in brilliant primary colours, which highlights the natural beauty of the New England landscape. Sirk shows a bourgeois family in which the children oppress their mother instead of the other way around. Sirk also presents an intimate and quite daring portrait of a woman who gets caught up in unnecessary negativity, her paranoia at what people are saying threatens to engulf her and she needs to learn to just go with the flow.

Carey knows that it is wrong not to marry Ron - after all, she loves him, despite the age difference - but she is far too concerned with honoring the petty social mores of the time, and satisfying her insincere and two-faced children. In the end, this doesn't really mean much, especially when true love is involved.

This is a dramatic masterpiece on the double standards and hypocrisy of modern day traditions and superfluous hypocritical values ,as the script depicts the tragic tale of a widow with teenage kids being forced to deny true love out of social constraints, but she is masterfully brought to realise that her sacrifice is in vain,as it does not matter to anyone except herself leading a forlorn and miserable existence when she can lead a happy life if she listens to her heart ,the movie is about being true to yourself and states very accurately that by being true alone can you bring happiness to all around you as well as find contentment within yourself .

Rock Hudson is really a rebellious revelation as the non-pretentious "younger man" who believes in simplicity in life as being the eternal truth and the bourgeois values as being bogus and superficial and totally unnecessary,Jane Wyman is left to ponder and find the truth in her own way by the sophisticated script and that realisation forms the crux of this social and sensitive drama as the feminist streak finds her own strengths to overcome her social inhibitions .

Douglas Sirk combines style and bitter truth in a manner unique to himself ,he is an absolutely amazing film-maker who fascinates with his observation of social trivia and petty human behaviour ,this movie is an indepth satire on the redundant social gossip and silly norms which are revealed as truly monstrous in a beautifully simple emotional exercise, where two people who can be unconventionally happy are being denied that right by social hypocrisy,and finally the movie triumphs in showing that social disapprove is of no consequence to the human existence as long as it does not affect anyone adversely .

The line "you will allow yourself an affair but deny love"is absolutely amazing and so sums up the social hypocrisy portrayed in this masterpiece in stylish simplicity.

this film would appeal to most people but particularly the older generation. there are no four letter words or violence.
it tells the story of choices and pulls at the heart strings, brilliant. good acting too.