Far from Heaven

Cathy Whitaker, a model housewife in 1950s Connecticut, takes two blows: she learns her husband is gay, and she becomes friends with Raymond Deagan, the gardener. The town forgives the second less than the first. Todd Haynes directed. The film is an open homage to the melodramas of Douglas Sirk, particularly All That Heaven Allows. Julianne Moore plays Cathy, Dennis Quaid her husband Frank and Dennis Haysbert plays Raymond. Elmer Bernstein wrote the score, and cinematographer Edward Lachman built the look using fifties techniques. On a 13.5 million dollar budget it grossed 29 million. At Venice, Moore won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress and Lachman took a prize for outstanding individual contribution. The film collected four Oscar nominations including Best Actress for Moore and Best Original Screenplay for Haynes. Critics called it an exquisitely designed and performed melodrama. Jonathan Rosenbaum called it a masterpiece; Stanley Kauffmann dissented. It placed 13th on The Guardian's list of the best films of the twenty-first century. Who it is for: viewers who take melodrama seriously and care about the use of colour. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism. The film is deliberately artificial and every scene imitates the language of fifties cinema.