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FAR FROM HEAVEN begins just that way. Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid) and his All-American blonde wife Cathy (Julianne Moore) - the high school cheerleader/prom queen sort who probably married right after graduation - own a perfect (and huge) home in a perfect neighborhood of Hartford, CN where you can't see the perfect neighbors for all the trees (gloriously clothed in perfect fall colors). The Whitakers have two perfect kids, and Frank manages the local office of mighty Magnatech. It's 1957, and when the Whitaker boy says "Oh, gee!", Mom reprimands him for his bad language. Frank wears a suit, tie and hat; Cathy wears full skirts and is perfectly coifed. In this all-white world, the only Blacks are the perfect housekeeper Sybil (Viola Davis) and the perfect gardener Ray (Dennis Haysbert). But there's a flip side.
In the film's leading role, Moore turns in an Oscar-worthy performance as the 50s-perfect wife whose perfect life implodes on the day she discovers hubby, ostensibly working late, in his office passionately kissing another man. And she's so pathetically grateful when Frank reluctantly consents to undergo psychiatric treatment. But then, in her growing loneliness, she befriends Ray, who's just taken over his deceased father's yard maintenance business. Ray is educated, sensitive, soft-spoken, gentle, and the single father of a young daughter. One day, Cathy accepts Ray's offer to take her on a short errand out of town to pick up some shrubs. On the way back, they stop for lunch at a roadhouse. Cathy is seen exiting Ray's truck by a local gossip, who soon pours gasoline on the smoldering racism of the Whitakers' neighbors. Even Cathy's best friend Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson) is appalled. Finally, thinking all is at least approaching right again with Frank (who's undergoing that therapy, remember?), off Cathy and her troubled spouse go for an idyllic winter vacation in Miami, a place peopled with handsome young men. Oh oh, big mistake.
In a role very different from the congenial characters recently played in FREQUENCY and THE ROOKIE, Quaid is darkly effective as the tortured Frank. And Haysbert is perhaps another Denzel Washington in the making. The "look" of the film is superb, recreating the fashion, cars, home and office decor, and technology of the period to an uncanny degree.
FAR FROM HEAVEN gives the viewers a glimpse at the dark side of an ideal time perhaps existing only in nostalgia and Norman Rockwell prints. It presages the turmoil and changes in a society on the verge of irrevocable evolution. For American audiences, this deserves to be a great film. For foreign audiences who didn't share in America's 50s bounty, it may be something less, but at least they can see where we come from.
One effect of this threat to her marriage is a growing relationship with her black (over-qualified) gardener (Dennis Haysbert). He, too, is a thoroughly decent man who has a lovely little daughter. They begin to meet discreetly - or so they think. They are obviously made for each other but meet disapproval and cruel behaviour from both sides of the racial divide. This is not the Deep South, so there are no burning crosses on the front lawn - just a feeling that it is everyone's business to express their views. In one scene, the couple are talking in the street and Julianna Moore breaks off their relationship. As she moves to go, he puts a restraining hand on her arm. The whole street, anonymous until now, freezes and men call warnings to Haysbert to unhand her. Ms. Moore's best friend, a thorough brick up to then, cuts her when she hears about the relationship with Haysbert.
All this is worked through but remains unresolved. One moral of the film is that the bad people of this world always try to bring down the good. The originality of the film lies in the paradoxical enhancement of the human cruelty by its very lyricism and beauty.
The acting is first rate. Julianna Moore keeps her character on a tight reign. Her character is a tough lady - controlled but warm. This makes the scene where she eventually breaks down into uncontrollable weeping all the more powerful.
The 50's style use of rich full colours works well on a big TV screen. Read more
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