Fridae

Written and directed by the openly gay Todd Haynes, Far From Heaven is a lush autumnal tale which pays tribute to the melodramatic works of Douglas Sirk where women sashay around in color-coordinated outfits and saloon-fresh bouffants while driving dual-toned station wagons.

Awashed with technicolour splendour which saturates each and every screen shot, Far From Heaven begins as a nostalgic excursion to the 1950s accompanied by the sweeping chords of Elmer Bernstein's opulent score.

Set in affluent Hartford, Connecticut, the movie presents audience with the picket fence paradise of the Whitaker family only to gradually strip away its artifice and reveal the underlying layers of repressed homosexuality, racial prejudice and grand romantic failure.

Starring as Cathy Whitaker, a pearled and gloved Julianne Moore in a peroxide do turns in a wonderful performance as the hostess-with-the-mostest who swirls around her well-kept house in skirts voluminous enough for her two children to play house under.

The envy of womenfolk everywhere, the well-mannered housewife lives a seemingly perfect lifestyle - that is until her chronically late-from-work husband delivers a devastating shock to her system. Late one evening, Cathy decides to hand-deliver her husband dinner at the office - only to find him grazing on the face of another man with more enthusiasm than a herd of starving sheep let loose on a meadow.

Playing against type, Dennis Quaid turns in an excellent performance as Frank Whitaker, a conflicted "family" man trying to cope with his repressed homosexuality while straining to maintain the semblance of heterosexual success. Tortured by his homosexual desires, Frank spends his nights following men down dark alleys, cruising male patrons at the local cinema and visiting clandestine gay bars.

Following a promise to Cathy that he will seek out a doctor to help him "beat this thing," Frank visits a psychiatrist (James Rebhorn) who advocates shock treats a la electro aversion therapy as a cure for limp-wrists-gitis. Despite his efforts, Frank finds himself unable to suppress his homosexual yearnings and degenerates into a Betty Ford dropout.

Since homosexuality was very much a taboo subject in the 1950s and the homosexual male was (and still is) stereotyped as being "a touch light on his feet" and "one of those," it is not surprising that Frank regards his burgeoning homosexuality as a "problem," "thing," and even a form of "sickness." To make matters worse, homosexuals are seen as being somewhat "lacking" or to quote Cathy's best friend Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson) puts it: "50s women like their men to be real men."

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Given the oppressive climate, one would expect Director Todd Haynes to portray Frank Whitaker as a victim of social circumstance and provide excuses for his eventual act of family desertion. However, as a homosexual character, Frank Whitaker is true-to-life in being absolutely unsympathetic. Despite Cathy's monumental efforts to save her marriage (to the extent that she has to reassure Frank with the words "You're all man to me" during a painfully unsuccessful attempt at heterosexual love-making), he unfairly lashes out at her in his misery.

When Frank finally runs off with a young Adonis with bedroom eyes he picked up while on vacation in Miami with Cathy, his affair with his young stud is again not portrayed through rainbow-tinted shades as a homo-haven but rather treated as a furtive affair of the motel room variety. Consequently, the audience is provided with an accurate cinematic representation of homosexual men who marry and yet lead a double life with nary a care to the consequences.

In the meanwhile, Cathy finds herself increasingly drawn to the quiet and erudite gardener Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert) who provides a soothing and comforting respite from the emotional maelstrom raging within Cathy's domestic sphere.

Choosing to ignore the prevailing social convention forbidding a lady to date a man who prunes her hedges (especially if he happens to be black), Cathy finds herself falling under the spell of a budding interracial romance. However, when Cathy and Raymond are seen discussing modern art at a gallery opening and later going to the modern day equivalent of a tea dance together, tongues start wagging and scandalised rumors soon escalate to threats and even violence.

In the face of social vilification and ostracised by her best friend as well as her hypocritical husband, Cathy evolves admirably from the unquestioning woman-in-servitude at the beginning of the movie to become someone who will settle for nothing less than living a life of truth.

Thus even though Far From Heaven ends on a note of bittersweet regret with both Cathy and Raymond parting with the knowledge that their society will never condone nor accept their love for each other, the audience is satisfied with the realisation that during their brief moments together, Cathy and Raymond managed to "see beyond the color, the surface of things" to what truly lies beneath.