It’s not a good movie, IMHO. And yet here I am, watching it on Bounce TV for the fourth time.
There seems to be a motif throughout the film involving Unhappy Housewife and Secretly Gay Husband’s children. Why are so they blatantly neglected and ignored? In every scene in which they appear, they are being told to be quiet, go upstairs, leave their father alone, not now dear, etc. It’s obvious that their treatment is significant, but how? I mean, is it just emphasizing how unhappy the family is? Or is it a greater statement about how times were back in those days–where gays had to get “fixed” and white women couldn’t talk freely to black men?
Help me make sense of this movie so that I can’t stop watching it!
I think it’s a cliche about 50s child rearing…children were to been seen not heard, parents didn’t hover, nobody was a special snowflake. Depending on who’s telling the story this is stifling and soul killing or character- and independence building.
In “Far From Heaven” the way the children are always being silenced (I think the boy is chided for saying “Gee Whiz”) mirrors the way the parent are always silencing their inner desires.
I love this movie and I think it’s good, too. Besides that, it’s beautifully filmed, very moody, and captures a certain atmosphere of doomed longing extremely well.
Children were indeed to be seen and not heard. Hard to picture in today’s child-centric world.
I’m curious about what specifically draws you to this film. If you like it, try a similar one filmed in that era, All that Heaven Allows, with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman. Similar theme-- though not the gay theme-- yeah, one sees the irony.
I like it because it’s so beautiful to look at. It’s a 50’s movie, only remade to be exaggerated. And the gay and the black elements back in the actual 50’s movies couldn’t have even been hinted at. As for the kids, as on Mad Men, children were to be seen and not heard, that’s why we baby boomers grew up vowing we would never treat OUR kids like our parents treated us!
Carlotta - In my family we weren’t allowed to say geez or gee whiz because it was considered a derivative of “Jesus”, thereby using the Lord’s name in vain.
The movie is an hommage to director Douglas Sirk, who directed several of the soap opera type films in the 1950s. The concept was to deal with the problems under the surface of that era, where themes like interracial romance* and homosexuality could not be portrayed or even hinted at.
The children were being treated similarly to children in that era. The film exaggerated some of the details to make its point.
*Except if it was a black woman posing as white and dying tragically in the end.
See, I had no idea the movie was so “intentional”. I had noticed that the cinematography was different, as well as the melodramatic background music. I’m relieved that it was schlocky on purpose. That makes it much better.
I actually don’t know why I’m drawn to the movie. At first I thought it was Quad’s character, but after watching it yesterday, I think it was the relationship between Julianne Moore’s character Cathy and her friend Eleanor. But I have to think about it some more.
I love the movie, but as much as I like Julianne Moore, I think that part should have gone to Sharon Stone–she had, at the time just the right 40-ish Susan Hayward/Lana Turner glamour.
I think it’s a great movie, and I’m not alone. It’s still 89% at Rotten Tomatoes. It was nominated for 4 Oscars: Julianne Moore for Best Actress (she lost to Nicole Kidman in The Hours), Edward Lachman’s Cinematography (lost to Conrad Hall for Road To Perdition), Elmer Bernstein’s Original Score (lost to Elliot Goldenthal’s Frida score) and Todd Haynes’ Original Screenplay (lost to Pedro Almodóvar’s Talk To Her). That was the year of Chicago, The Two Towers, The Pianist and Adrien Brody’s surprise win. Far From Heaven should have dominated but it obviously confused a lot of Academy members too. The list of other awards nominations and wins is impressive. It was a critics’ darling, but it deserved to be.
You certainly don’t have to be ashamed of liking it!
I think it’s impressive without having seen any of Douglas Sirk’s films, but after seeing some Sirk films, Far From Heaven is even better. Director Todd Haynes loves that era. He recently directed a miniseries of Mildred Pierce. Do a YouTube search for “Douglas Sirk” and watch some of the trailers. You’ll see immediately what Haynes was trying to re-create, though with much better technology and film stock (and, IMO, with a better script and actors).