Far from Heaven movie review & film summary (2002)

They are the Whitakers, Cathy and Frank (Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid). They live in a perfect split-level house on a perfect street, where the autumn leaves are turning to gold. Their little son is reprimanded for rude language like "Aw, shucks." Of course she drives a station wagon. Mona Lauder (Celia Weston), the local society editor, is writing a profile about their perfection.

One slight shadow clouds the sun. While being interviewed by Celia, Cathy sees a strange black man in the yard, and walks outside to ask, ever so politely, if she can "help" him. He introduces himself: Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert), son of their usual gardener, who has died. Cathy, who has a good heart, instinctively reaches out to touch Raymond on the shoulder in sympathy, and inside the house the gesture is noted by Celia, who adds to her profile that Cathy is a "friend to Negroes." Frank Whitaker is one of those big, good-looking guys who looks like a college athlete gone slightly to seed, or drink. One night Cathy has to pick him up at the police station after an incident involving "one lousy cocktail." In another scene we see him enter a gay bar, where in these days long before Stonewall, the men exchange furtive, embarrassed glances as if surprised to find themselves there. One night Cathy makes the mistake of taking Frank his dinner when he works late, and opens his office door to find him kissing a man.

The movie accurately reflects the values of the 1950s, and you can see that in a scene where Frank says his homosexuality makes him feel "despicable" but he's "going to lick this problem." The key to the power of "Far from Heaven" is that it's never ironic; there is never a wink or a hint that the filmmakers have more enlightened ideas than their characters. This is not a movie that knows more than was known in 1957, but a movie that knows exactly what mainstream values were in 1957--and traps us in them, along with its characters.

Frank and Cathy have no sex life. Cathy is not attracted to Raymond so much sexually, however, as she's in awe of his kindness and beauty, which is so adamantly outside her segregated world. She hardly knows how to talk with him. At one point she says that "Mr. Whitaker and I support equal rights for the Negro." Raymond looks at her level-eyed and says, "I'm happy to hear that." He has a business degree, but has inherited the same gardening business that supported his father; a widower, he dotes on his 11-year-old daughter.