Insightful film revisits history

By Nicole Rodriguez

Sitting in a theater watching Focus Features' "Far From Heaven" is just like going through a time warp back to 1957 Connecticut. Not only are the characters and setting the same, but the overdone Technicolor and sweeping camera movements are reminiscent of the period as well. In fact, the only dead give away that this movie isn't from another era is the all-too recognizable faces of its stars, Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid.

Not that this is an insult. In fact, it is important to note that this sense of time travel works incredibly well for the movie, making the audience feel as though they have traveled back to the society in which this story takes place.

Moore plays Cathy Whitacker, a Donna Reed-esque housewife with the perfect clothes, the perfect two children and the perfect star salesman husband. The first 15 minutes of the film are filled with almost cliched depictions of 1950s life, in which Cathy is preoccupied with planning social events and her children are sent to their rooms for using outlandish phrases such as "aw shucks."

But even in the midst of all this happiness, the audience has the impression that something is off and that a lifestyle this perfect must be fleeting. And, as we expect, the movie takes an interesting turn with the introduction of Cathy's husband Frank (Quaid), who is first seen being bailed out of jail for public drunkenness by his wife. And later, as we are given glimpses of him ducking into late night movies and private ID only bars.

One night when her husband fails to arrive home for dinner, Cathy, in her faithfully classic-TV style, wraps up his lamb chops to deliver them to the office - only once she arrives there, she finds her husband in a smoldering embrace with another man.

Her perfect world shattered, Cathy has to deal with holding her family together, while fighting off vicious rumors of "despicable" words such as homosexuality and divorce. She finds that the only person she has to cry to is her gardener, an African-American man her high-society friends find as taboo as her husband's sexual practices.

The greatest thing about "Far From Heaven," is that it presents such controversial material in a context where the audience doesn't feel as though the filmmakers were trying to teach us something. The movie is never overly dramatic or ironic, but straightforward and perhaps even a little secretive in the way it portrays these situations, as though the movie itself were gossip within a women's social circle instead of a work of art for all to see.

Julianne Moore, who garnered Oscar nominations for both "Boogie Nights" and "The End of the Affair," is phenomenal as the downfallen housewife, Cathy. While her character may start out as a stereotype, Moore breathes a life into Cathy that soon makes her very real and relatable to the 2003 audience watching her. She manages to show us Cathy's inner pains without breaking the perfect surface appearance Cathy continuously tries to keep up for the entirety of the film. Cathy is as unaware of her own strength as the people around her, something the audience finds tragic given how much we look up to her and want her to be happy.

Dennis Quaid ("Frequency," "The Rookie"), although given far less screen time than Moore, also makes the most of his part. We see in his Frank both desperation and self-loathing. It is no accident that Frank ended up married to Cathy with two children but a conscious decision he made. A decision he hoped would rid him of his homosexuality - a condition he seems to regard as some sort of repulsive disease. Of course Todd Haynes' ("Safe") script never explicitly tells the audience so, it is left solely up to Quaid to convey, and he does so flawlessly.

It almost feels as though "Far From Heaven" was one of the best movies of 1957. The film takes all of the old Hollywood techniques and soundtracks and drops into them the modern themes and plotlines everyone was afraid to talk about back in the times when this actually occurred. As it is, the audience always feels as though they are watching a classic film, one which will no doubt continue to garner rave reviews for generations to come. "Far From Heaven" may not have been made in the time period it represents, but it certainly makes an impact on this one.