Far From Heaven

Pros: excellent story, stunning visuals, great performances
Cons: I wanted to know more of what happened to Cathy and Frank at the end

I had never heard the name Douglas Sirk prior to my viewing of the film Far From Heaven. To be more accurate, I hadn’t heard the name prior to my viewing of the film with the commentary by Director Todd Haynes. Julianne Moore is ...

Pros: Thought-provoking film. The mentality of the people in the film seems a lifetime ago.
Cons: ~none~

FAR FROM HEAVEN...is a movie well worth seeing. Believe it or not, it has no special effects, but yet conjures up so many feelings. It is directed by Todd Haynes.

When we walked in to see this film, I had almost no idea what it was about. We...

Pros: Performances, Plot
Cons: Overwhelming filmmaking style

First, I want to say that I have been looking forward to seeing Far From Heaven for months. I greatly admire Julianne Moore as an actor (a notion validated by her Academy Award nomination for this film). I find the premise of cracking through...

Pros: Moore, Quaid, Haysbert, Haynes's direction and script, Bernstein's score
Cons: Too much has remained the same for too long

Frank and Cathy Whitaker seem to be living the ideal life of an affluent married couple in Hartford, Connecticut, in the late 1950s. Frank (Dennis Quaid) is a top account executive at Magnatech, an electronics company that makes, among other things,...

Pros: Ravishing filmmaking, smart filmmaking, superior performances
Cons: Did the insinuation allow for too much freedom for Haynes to achieve his goals

I suspect it's unnecessary to know anything at all about Douglas Sirk before going in to see Todd Haynes's new film, Far From Heaven. However, read totally as the text itself, divorced from all necessary cinematic context, all readings of the film...

Pros: Dynamic Story that brings bigotry front and center
Cons: none

Looking for some mindless drivel to take your pre-teenager kids to this holiday season? Far from Heaven should be off your kiddie movie list and on the adult must- see agenda.

Far From Heaven has a catchy title which caught my eye. The movie...

Pros: J. Mo, Lachman's cinematography
Cons: An uneven script, favouring Sirkiness over substance

Without the burden of romantic entanglements this Valentine's Day (woe is me), and feeling a bit cynical about the whole notion of romantic love, I felt like taking in a film where the quest for that emotion runs head first into a brick wall. On top of...

Pros: Moore, cinematography, moving, melodrama (if that's a good thing)
Cons: wooden acting, stylized, melodrama (if you're not into that)

Cathy and Frank Whitaker appear to live the ideal life, and could appear on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. In fact, the attractive couple poses as models in advertisements for the successful Hartford (CT) company where Frank (Dennis...

Pros: Moore, Quaid, and Haysbert, the costumes, art direction and cinematography
Cons: Oh , maybe you better read the review if you want to know....

*****ATTENTION ALL LADIES AND GERMS. THERE ARE SPOILERS SCATTERED THROUGHOUT THIS REVIEW. IF IT MATTERS TO YOU (LIKE YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS MOVIE IS ABOUT) DON’T CONTINUE *******


Far From Heaven is appropriately...

Pros: A Breathtaking, Elegant Masterpiece from Todd Haynes featuring Edward Lachman's Exquisite Cinematography.
Cons: None.

With the recent disappointment over Mike Newell’s 50s period film “Mona Lisa Smile” about a progressive teacher trying to make her students look at life outside of marriage. Many wondered how in the hell this film could’ve been so much ...

Pros: Stylishly sumptuous and superbly acted with audacious, incisive irony that's incendiary and compelling
Cons: Supporting characters are one-dimensional and the "gay guilt" loses focus to the inter-racial theme

When Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore), a Hartford housewife/mother, discovers her successful sales exec husband (Dennis Quaid) locked in a secret embrace with a man, she's shocked and confused yet determined to save her marriage. It's 1957...as she...

Pros: Excellent performances by Moore, Quaid, Haysbert. Astounding stylized use of 1950's Hollywood Studio methods.
Cons: The film may be seen as an irrelevant homage to a passe kind of movie.

It is early October 1957. You are in Hartford, Connecticut, a prime social locus of America. The glorious russet leaves are falling; the pumpkins are curing for Halloween on the porches of the handsome two-storey houses, where the quintessential...

Pros: The whole "50's" feel of the production. Moore.
Cons: Some dialogue was a little stilted.

Far From Heaven is a beautiful, passionate film. It unfolds with the perfect family life for the Whitakers, just like we always saw on TV shows of the era. It seems as though director Todd Haynes was shooting for that look - that perfect look of the 50's ...

Pros: Performance, stunning colour
Cons: artificial, confused, over-the-top

One of the most talked about films of that year, Todd Haynes tribute to Douglas Sirk is a very strange bird indeed. It's attractive, well-acted and far from boring (oops, sorry, I really will stop this time), but the whole enterprise is fundamentally ...

Pros: Dennis Haysbert, Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, and gorgeous cinematography.
Cons: Source material is uneven; by source material I mean script, by uneven I mean dialogue.

What follows is a study of Far From Heaven from a sociological perspective; founded around the idea that race and sexuality are intrinsically connected during the fifties. Though their are few spoilers, I must warn you that one major revelation ...