She's Come Undone
by Sasha Stone
Todd Haynes has been sending us postcards from the edge since he began
his career as a rebellious upstart with the cult hit Superstar: The
Karen Carpenter Story. He went on to make films brilliant (Safe)
and just okay (Velvet Goldmine), but with his latest, Far
From Heaven, he joins the ranks of a handful of writer/directors
who transcend the apparent limitations of entertainment and deliver
art.
One of the best films of the year, and maybe one of the best ever,
Far From Heaven is the kind of movie that is not so easily
forgotten - it lingers in the imagination, provokes moments of reflection,
and will likely stir up the insides of anyone who lives their life cocooned
in a lie.
From
the first to the last shot, the film is an homage and/or redux of the
1950s melodrama, as realized by Douglas Sirk (All That Heaven Allows,
etc.). Hayne’s never loses his footing, nor do his actors ever slip
up - this was absolute dedication to the form. On the other hand, the
form provides the outline, but underneath there are stories to tell.
Each of the three leads is like the film itself, presented one way but
existing in a different reality.
It is as if they are all trapped in a 1950s TV commercial, or a Sirk
melodrama - this isn’t meant to be life the way it was in the 1950s,
but rather life as viewed through media representation. When we look
back at the decade, we see it as though life really was the Donna
Reed Show - that the lights faded out after the first kiss, that
no one sweared or even sweated all that much and that, of course, it
was a white, heterosexual world all the way.
Julianne
Moore plays Cathy, a typical, upper middle class housewife living the
1950s American dream. Two children, a boy and a girl, a handsome husband
who is a successful salesman, a lovely home, beautiful clothes and even
a maid. Through all of the cocktail parties and art openings and lunch
with the girls, Cathy puts on a smile and acts the part. She laughs
along when the girls talk about how much their husbands demand sex.
Cathy’s can’t stand to look at her let alone touch her - her husband
(Dennis Quaid, in a brilliant performance) has a secret. He's been fighting
his desire for men his entire life he’s tried to marry it away, drink
it away, even therapy it away but it keeps bubbling to the surface,
as one’s identity is wont to do.
Ordinarily,
Cathy would have gone on with her life and found a way to live with
the dirty secret, were it not for Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) her gardener,
who is every bit the man she’s always wanted to be loved by smart,
funny, compassionate, and a tall drink of water. But he’s black - and
in 1957, black and white did not move in the same circles, at least
not in the suburbs.
Clearly, this was far more of a racist world than any other gay men
existed in social circles and were giggled about and socialized with
but crossing the black/white barrier was tantamount to betraying one’s
country. Cathy’s friendship with her black gardner will cost her too
much. Even though the two barely touched, the town gossips about them
and suddenly Cathy’s reputation (which was a big deal in the ‘50s) is
ruined.
As
Cathy, Moore has never been better. It’s no wonder Hayne’s wanted her,
and only her, for the role, even going so far as to say he was designing
the whole look of the film to match her red hair (which he does to breathtaking
effect, although as it turns out, she plays a blonde). She must carry
the film, and if we didn’t feel anything for her, or for any of the
other characters, the movie would be written off as a filmmaker’s exercise,
albeit a flawless one. But this is no exercise it is a flesh and blood
story that is true to life as any, even though it's being seen through
a distorted eye.
Hayne’s
screenplay is a lot more intricate than one might think - for instance,
the way the parents never speak to their children. Every time one of
the kids requires attention they are put off, shoved away, or just plain
ignored, and even though they’re living in the same house they are being
taught how to just live the lie as well. (Thank god the sixties were
on the way.) Haynes presents us with a version of hell far, far from
heaven, where gay men have to hide in dark movie theaters and blacks
weren’t allowed to swim in swimming pools at white hotels. A place where
women are to hold their tongues, follow strict guidelines for social
behavior, and never, god forbid, let passion be their guide. In fact,
no one suffocates more intensely than Cathy who, by the end of the
film, hasn’t found anywhere she belongs.
We
are cleverly led into the fake world that cinema and television presented
to us of ‘50s life, but in going back and watching it from a different
angle, from the inside out, we are seeing what was hidden then and maybe
what is still hidden now. It calls out all of the gay men and women
who are currently working in Hollywood yet can’t come out of the closet
and it calls out a media that is still obsessed with the goings-on
of white people. Hayne’s is concerned not with the constructs but with
the story. He did this brilliantly with Superstar, where the
whole movie was acted out with Barbie dolls yet the story was still
the most important thing about it. Here, he’s moved beyond the surface
of the perfect picture past the glossy exterior to what lives and
breathes underneath.
©2002 Sasha Stone
CineScene
