QUEUED UP: Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven

Todd Haynes' take on the 1950s draws attention to the tension lurking beneath Hollywood's Technicolor patina.

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QUEUED UP: Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven

POSTED: Wednesday, February 29, 2012, 3:00 PM

Filed Under: Movies

Movie critic (and the guy who compiles our weekly repertory film listings) Michael Gold reviews his favorite Netflix Instant flick of the week.

Kudos, Hollywood: your self-masturbatory awards show on Sunday night was actually a nice reminder of what movies used to be. Clips from Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz reinforced the memory of when studios were the wholesome guardians of morality and art rather than peddlers of techno-porn and canned genre flicks. Girls were girls, men were men, and movies were just so simple. Those were the days.

Except, as director Todd Haynes reveals in Far From Heaven (2002), they weren’t. An homage to Douglas Sirk’s resplendent melodramas, Haynes’ take on the 1950s draws attention to the tension lurking beneath Hollywood’s Technicolor patina. Julianne Moore stars as borderline-Stepford wife Cathy, whose world is turned upside down when she discovers her husband (Dennis Quaid) making out with a man at the office. Cathy can’t turn to her high-society friends—imagine the scandal—so she eventually confides in her black gardener (Dennis Haysbert), with whom she, scandalously, falls in love. Haynes’ vivid shots perfectly mirror the idyllic worlds that classic Hollywood characters inhabit. But by aping those movies’ environs, Far from Heaven also draws attention to the frequently ignored concerns that the films suppressed (and to some extent, still do). Consequentially, Haynes’ flick becomes a critical reminder of what, exactly, studio execs are trying to celebrate.

(michael.gold@citypaper.net) (@migold)

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