Rating: 
Summary: tell me again why this movie is so good...(?)...
Review: So it showed the oppression of women, Blacks, and homosexuality in the 50s...Here we are 50+ years later, have we really come that far? We've just become better at hiding it. Slow, boring, empty and unmoving. I can't honestly give it one star.
Rating: 
Summary: An absolute must-see
Review: This is one of my favorite movies ever. The script,performances, and sets really take you to another perspective but not in any arthouse way.
Rating: 
Summary: What's all the hubub?
Review: Far From Heaven is indeed beautifully shot and it captures perfectly the mood and decor of a 1950s era Douglas Sirk picture. In fact, it borrows heavily from Sirk's 1955 film, ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS. That movie was about the taboo relationship between an older Jane Wyman with almost grown kids and the younger Rock Hudson. The clever thing in FAR FROM HEAVEN is that Julianne Moore is married to the character that Rock Hudson played in real life, and her taboo relationship is with a black man instead of a younger man. The movie hardly covers any new ground. We've seen these issues explored and re-explored already. Maybe we've never seen it in the style of Douglas Sirk, and maybe it is clever that Director, Todd Haynes, just reworks a Sirk plot to make his point, but I think the critics went a little overboard with their praise. In the end, you have a beautifully shot film with good acting, but Moore still has the same regrets as Jane Wyman about her life. The characters are really the same, only the circumstances that got them there are a bit different. It's still enjoyable and even funny in places, but just like the movie School Ties that explored anti-Semitism in the 1950s, I felt that we really don't learn anything new about the issue of prejudice just by watching it happen 50 years ago. It only seems to allow us to look back from the safety of modern enlightened live and shake our heads at those poor fools who were so wrong. That's too easy. Great movies with messages should challenge our thoughts not reward us for our own modern-day sensibilities. ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS let modern audiences think about the constraints society was currently putting on the reverse age-difference question. It gave people something to consider when they left the movie. I doubt Todd Haynes was trying to make the film that he is being praised for. He probably just thought it would be interesting to rework ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS and re-introduce that style of filmmaking to modern audiences. He made an entertaining film, but not a classic. I can only think the politically correct premise made this film seem a bit more important to critics than it really is.
Rating: 
Summary: Sorry*- But Not So Hot Afterall*...
Review: I thought this movie would be better than it was.(?)
I'm not sure exactly why I feel this way, but my advice is don't buy it till you see it.
Ok to rent- - - but not a keeper* Glad I just rented it*
Rating: 
Summary: What about Quaid?
Review: "Far from Heaven" should be the film that puts to rest forever the debate over whether Dennis Quaid can really act or just looks good on the screen. He can really act. He's nothing short of spectacular as the conflcited husband in this stylish 50s set piece from director Todd Haynes. Haynes' personal muse Julianne Moore is also good here, but I question why she received the lion's share of the attention at Quaid's expense. In fact, the excellence of the film drops off notably in the second-half, where Quaid's internal battle is overshadowed by a second storyline involving Moore's relationship with the son of her long-time gardener (also wonderfully portrayed by Dennis Haysbert).
Rating:
Summary: Good Movie
Review: Far From Heaven is a familiar Hollywood study of racism and homosexuality, this time, set in an affluent Connecticut suburb, circa 1956. Like other movies with a "message", its fairly straight forward, portraying American society in the familiar Hollywood light of liberal good and conservative bad, but it succeeds nonetheless. Similar to its modern day cousin, "American Beauty", the strength of the writing, cinematography and acting rescue a relatively common cultural critique from mediocrity and produces a very good movie. Julianne Moore is the familiar northeastern WASP mother and wife of privilege and wealth. She has two good kids, a productive husband, and is a pillar of upper class society. Dinner parties, museum openings, all are under her control. This façade begins to fall apart when Moore finds out, shockingly, that her husband, played by the conflicted and tortured Dennis Quaid, is a homosexual. Still, Moore's character is so addicted to her position of power, she seeks to find a way through her new dilemmas. Her troubles continue as her husband struggles to find himself, while their marriage suffers irreparable damage. As a comfort, she turns to the kindly black gardener, played masterfully by Dennis Haysbert. Of course, even the slightest hint of their fraternization turns the community upside down, as the gossipmongers and the racists, on both sides of color, reject Moore and Haysbert. The rest of the plot is fairly predictable, but it is somewhat interesting to see how things turn out. The first thing that strikes you about this movie is how beautiful it is. Every shot, especially those highlighting the domestic aura of the 1950's looks like a well produced post card or Norman Rockwell painting. The acting is superb, with wonderful performances delivered by Haysbert and Moore. While Moore got most of the credit for this movie, Haysbert was kind of ignored, a really unfortunate oversight. What stops this movie from being a truly great film is its fairly conventional storyline and theme, which is standard Hollywood shtick. However, it was still a very good movie.
Rating:
Summary: 5 stars for the theaterical release, 4 for the dvd
Review: When I saw this movie in the theater last fall, I loved it.
The director exaggerated everything in the film in a faux 50's styles-the clothes, the sets, the cars, the film graphics, the music-and on the big screen, it made a huge impact me. I am familiar with the Douglas Sirk movies on which he based this film. I found it a very powerful experience to go to a theater and see for the first time a movie in the style of rerun staples on Turner Classic Movies.
Yet this experience did not translate for me on the small screen. I might as well have been watching a Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman movie on TCM.
The film's plot is powerful and profound: the marriage of a perfect 50's couple in Hartford, CT, is threatened by his homosexuality and her friendship with a black college-educated gardner. Dennis Quaid, in the role of the tortured, gay husband, turned in the finest performance of the year in a supporting role in my book. The dvd is worth it just for his performance. He haunted me. Julianne Moore and Dennis Haysbert are also wonderful in their roles.
Haynes uses the technique of exaggeration as a means to examine the artifice and the lives of those individuals in 50's. As other reviewers have noted in the press, not everyone in 1957 drove a 1957 car, had everything in their home purchased that year in a 1957 style, wore 1957 clothes etc. People then, as today, drove older clothes, had a mismash of furniture and styles in their homes, and a wardrobe of new and old. Yet this technique, while obviously artificial, highlights the emphasis on appearance of the era. Once again, I loved it in the movie, I found it less impressive on the small screen. I also wasn't overwhelemed by the director's commentary-I thought that I would get more from him.
Still an important, intelligent movie that most serious moviegoers should see at some point.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth your time. Should be on broadway not in movies
Review: This is a horrible movie. I could barely sit through the whole thing. There are not many movies that I cannot, at the very least, finish watching but this is one I had to force myself through. Sure the performances are good but the storyline goes NO WHERE and does not pick up. The only conflict in the movie is where a white woman 'hangs out' with a black man. Give me a break and movies have come alittle farther than this.
Rating:
Summary: Far From Interesting
Review: What a dull, trite film. Is any one shocked that the 50's were an oppressive time when perfectly good people found themselves in tragic situations? Isn't this old hat? You've seen it before. You'll see it again. Leaving the theater, I actually thought that the movie was OK, like a better-than-average TV movie with fabulous sets and costumes. It took a mere ten minutes to change my mind as I mulled it over. I kept thinking, "But I couldn't connect with the characters." And then it dawned on me: there were no characters, only cardboard cutouts with pretty outfits. No one has a past, no one has depth, there is no exploration of how Quaid and Moore actually get together. This is paint-by-numbers filmmaking meant to make you feel good ("I don't think like that, look how far we've come!" Sure, but how integrated is the block on which you live?). In fairness, I thought Dennis Quaid was very good, but he disappears nearly completely halfway through the film as the film changes focus. On balance, great looking patronizing pap.
Rating:
Summary: it was all right
Review: The critics loved it but I didn't like it, I thought that Douglas Sirk movies were much better, I've watched them and I'm in my 20s. This movie just had too much hype and that's the only reason that I saw it. Unlike Douglas Sirk this movie just didn't do it for me. The premise is basically this: A 1950s couple seem to have it all together. He's the husband that brings home the bacon and climbing the corporate ladder. She's the perfect wife & mother, they come complete with two young kids. Unfortunately not everything is at seems to be on the surface. Pretty soon the wife finds out of his affair with another man, she stars being friends with her African-American gardner, Raymond, and finds herself falling in love with him. When their seen together in town, vicious rumors soon circulate about them in their small town and mostly Caucasian community. What will this 50s housewife do? It has physical adultery, emotional adultery, homosexuality (yes I respect homosexuals but I just wasn't comfortable seeing them kiss and he was cheating on his wife with another man..come on!), the husband hits his wife but always apologizes later on. Its a movie to discuss homosexuality, racial tension & interracial dating, prejudice, adultery, etc.. that's all. I didn't think much of the movie except that it was artistic. It was well acted, the costumes & cinematography were beautiful. They were wonderful..but that's all this movie is: artistic & critic eye candy. I didn't mind that they were from different ethnicities and the movie was realistic when it ended them not having to be together. I wouldn't let a young child watch it, teenagers and adults are are more appropriate for this movie.
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