Far From Heaven: A

Far From Heaven, an exhiliratingly well-made movie, tinkers so sublimely with the sub-genre of 1950's Douglas Sirk suburban soap-operas that by the end it has achieved something very near iconic grace. Writer-director Todd Haynes channels with fetishistic uncanny the stitch-by-stitch beauty of Sirk's films but it is his own magnificent capibility as a filmmaker that succeeds this film - that sears into your mind, finally, the true magnitude of humanity.

Kathy Whittaker (Julianne Moore) lives in an idyllic community, spends hours with her idyllic friend Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson), and lives by idyllic rules - namely: always throw grand parties & never talk to negroes. Her life is in a word: perfect. Husband Frank (Dennis Quaid) is quickly becoming a corporate honcho and her kids are little dreams of good behavior. She couldn't be happier and by mere virtue of her naievete, her perfect happiness, she is destined to fall. Just like Sirk's films however, the woman's fall is really only staged as such. It is actually an awakening of the soul; a born-again experience that allows the world to blossom anew, both for the protagonist and for the audience.

In one of many bold strokes, the spasms of passion that cause Kathy's undoing are as tightly-closeted affairs then - e.g. homosexuality, interracial relationships - as they are now. The characters slowly awaken to their capitulated emotions and go racing after them in many different ways, but their goal is universal and tragically human: to be in love. Shadows of metaphor and meta-irony dart across the screen on occasion - something here to evoke humor, something there to conjure delirium - but the movie states itself with directness and ravishing lyricism. Its message rings true and powerful: that though their searches may sometimes be in vain, the simple act of having ever wanted that "scandalous emotion" means more about life than frosted cookies ever will.

Julianne Moore, in a vision of a performance, enraptures the picture around her every word but it is Quaid and Haysbert, as Kathy's black gardener, who allow the picture to spread and darken - to question with unending curiousity exactly what makes us, then and now, tick. Filmed in an ever shifting color arrangment and scripted with all the flair that Douglas Sirk's dialogue lacked (although both still religously use "Leave It To Beaver"'s colloquillisms) Far From Heaven is perfect because it so wisely explores mood with charm and incandescent humanity; its overripe melodrama has real power. Far From Heaven is the rare cinematic experience that takes the the simple pleasure of living - of wanting to be alive - and seduces you with it.