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Summary: am i crazy??
Review: am i the only one who wants my time and money back?????
Rating: 
Summary: Far From Heaven, Close to Perfection
Review: Stylish, surprisingly modern, this 50's style film unites many big themes as they roll through the landscape of Hartford suburbia in the film, "Far From Heaven". Todd Haynes recreates the somewhat dullish, over dramatic style of 50's melodramas with a well thought out, dynamic script that manages to tackle issues so relevant to today. Things are never what they seem from the outside, as his characters play pretend okay while their inner lives are being shattered at every turn. It's daring to allow them the full course of their emotions, all the while repressing them every chance they get. It's the dichotomy that drives this film, ever so successfully. Rest assured, Julianne Moore gives the perfomance of a lifetime in the role of Cathy Whittaker. Every bit the proper, refined housewife, Julianne manages to take a role that could very easily be overacted, and gives her dignity and control and a sense of vulnerability all at the same time. Her range and skill as a performer leads me to see films that she is in simply because she is in them, and I cannot say that about many other actors. Dennis Quaid and Patricia Clarkson also wallop their roles wonderfully. Todd Haynes' "Far From Heaven" should have been more heavily lauded from critics and audiences, and Oscars alike. This is one film that will remain as a hallmark of invention for years to come.
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Summary: Visually Stunning, but a Sad Story
Review: Yes, the cinematography in this movie is beautiful. Yes, Julianne Moore's acting is Oscar worthy, but frankly, she is becoming type-cast as the depressed or distressed housewife or lonely woman (e.g., The Hours, Shipping News, Magnolia, Map of the World, etc.). But this story is just plain ugly and sad and ends without a clear resolution. I truly did care about Moore's character and her struggles as she slips farther and farther into despair. But is this really entertainment? After watching this movie, I felt genuinely depressed. Don't watch this if you like for your movies to come to decisive and clear resolutions. This one will leave you frustrated. I realize the statement the director is making is that life is open-ended and sad and ugly and we don't know what the next moment will bring, but when I watch a movie, I want to forget about all that stuff for a while. Also, life is full of surprises and serendipity and lots of good stuff, too. Even if Moore's character had discovered one reason to be happy in the midst of her downward spiraling struggles, it would have been a much better movie. This movie just portrays people at their sordid worst and provides no redeeming philosophical value. In this sense, it fails miserably as a work of art.
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Summary: As the Name Suggests, Far from Heaven is Far from Perfection
Review: This is a poorly written and directed movie of all the time. It is not worth your time as well as your money. Here are the reasons why I think the movie is lousy: First and foremost, it is neither entertaining nor educational. You tell me how entertaining or educational it is when you see a certain father deny his family, both his wife and children, and pursue his selfish, wicked, disgusting lifestyle. ... Secondly, it is EXTREMELY boresome.
The negative message the movie presents--hedonistic values--out balances the positive value and norm of our society. ...
Anyway, if you haven't seen the movie yet, I suggest you keep your luxury of not exposing yourself to a great deal of unspeakable stupidity in the movie!
Rating: 
Summary: Quite an ambitious film - stylish with a concrete foundation
Review: Far From Heaven is chosen to be the opening movie of Hong Kong's Film Festival in 2003. After seeing the DVD version of the movie, I am sure that no one would object that it is quite an ambitious which is determined to deal with two unspeakable and sensitive subjects in the 60s - Racism and Homosexuality. The movie starts with a big suspense when Frank Whitaker was confused about his own sexual orientation. Then, the plot is strengthened by certain black issues and the narrow-mindedness of the people in a small town. In order to perform as a archetypal wife, Cathy Whitaker (starred by the charming Julianne Moore) puts up with rumours and gossips by the people in the neighbourhood. She could hardly liberate herself from both the racial stereotypes and the interruption of her marriage owing to her husband's coming-out. In the movie, the racial issue is well-plotted, with a beginning and an end. However, I am slightly disappointed that homosexuality is not that confronted bravely and it is left a bit dangling somewhere in the story, seemingly unfinished. Perhaps it is the best way for Cathy Whitaker to survive.
After seeing the movie, I will definitely go into the bonus materials in the DVD and the articles covered by SIGHT AND SOUND.
FAR FROM HEAVEN is definitely a movie to be tasted.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing!
Review: This as close to perfection as a movie can get. The acting, directing, screenplay, and cinematography are all as good as it gets. Wonderfully engaging. One of 2002's best films.
Rating:
Summary: Terrific Film
Review: I really did enjoy this. I was lucky to see it in a grand old theater with a huge chandelier and multi-tiered seating so I gladly sat all the way in the back to absorb the grandeur of both the setting and the film.
I really do like Julianne Moore as a actress. What I like most about her is that she often seems if not guileless than a little unaware of the entirety of whats going on as a character with most films. Here she really plays with what a wife is aware of and what she isn't. Dennis Quaid also has a nice performance as a man seething with a lot of secrets and anger. I think its simplistic to make this about his character's homosexuality or even his wife's daliance with an interracial love affair, it's about the seduction of the "taboo" and the vim it interjects into their lives.
For her it is a Black man and for him, it is breaking one lifestyle to choose another. Using 1950's as a backdrop of repression and also a controlling force that boxes all of these characters in. Its inspired to use a timeframe as the opposing force but it's also a way of adding texture to this film visually. The women's fashions, the suburban settings, the thoughtframe even down to a little boy putting his feet in a pool and all the white people fleeing because he's black. The work here on race is stronger than the pieces on sexuality because there is a clear cut yes or no, to Quaid's character and his sexuality. Either he will stay married and have secret daliance or he will come out, to at least his wife and himself, and leave her for a man. The movie loses one star from me because it can't quite pierce the sexuality taboo as well as it does the race one.
Julianne Moore's character is castigated and vilified by those closest to her in friendship and even at one point her husband, in a true double standard moment, because of her friendship with the black gardner. The fact that she pushes further and further, goes with the man to an all black club and receives the same treatment from black as eventually she receives from white. The super part is the observation of what it must be like to be a Black man going to a museum opening in a town full of white people, the museum full of white people. That Moore's character makes that empathic observation is what makes this movie stellar. And then the reverse when she goes to an all Black club that amongst Black people, shocked and dismayed and frightened at her presence, is both observed by her, at first in a feeling of being used and then as a silent agreement of mutual defiance.
The fact that Quaid's secret relationship isn't explored as much also bespeaks to the yes or no of sexuality verses race. Either he is or he isn't. He will or he won't. And eventually he does, but when he breaks down and tells his wife, the strongest part of his performance is his admittance of having never been in honest love before and experiencing that and how torn he is. Since this happens off camera after a brief scene of attraction between him and another says that the film chooses the stronger storyline of race.
Moore's character eventually sees that as Dennis Haysberry the man she loves, is leaving after a racial attack on his daughter, she could possibly, now single, explore a relationship with him. But Haysberry is wiser about the world than she is, he knows that its the time, the 1950's that is truly keeping them apart, not convention or lack of possibility.
Though it may on the surface seem like a sad movie initially I think that it sings of rdemption of one's truest self through exploration of the taboo that both desire. Going to say good-bye to HAysberry at the train station is bittersweet but I got the feeling that Moore's character has possibility, that she's learned from her husband that when you find what it is that truly gives you passion, you have to go after it.
I thought to myself a lot during the film that she was trapped because she was expected to take care of her children and the film bears this out. Its also speaking to the ability for men to 180 degrees turn around in their desires but that women of that time were locked into the roles they'd played out.
Moore doesn't have a traditional breakdown scene because this is all played against the milieu of an older movie framework, language, style, mood so she has melodrama but not the raw emotinal rending one expects from Moore, but here it fits. Four stars because her relationship is so well examined and Quaid's isn't as deeply. ... Julianne Moore deserves an Oscar, for something, for all of her work and Dennis Quaid whose face looks older still had the charisma and form of someone willing to take risks with himself. There's a nice balance in actors like him who are willing to work at being great actors, regardless of what the perception of them may be. That kind of courage is what makes great films and artists and work.
Rating:
Summary: worth seeing
Review: Sometimes campy in an straight forward way, 'Far From Heaven' can come across as another cheesy take on life in the Eisenhower era and for that reason can instantly turn some people off, like my 65 year old friend i saw this film with who was a 50s housewife. Her take on the film being it was too realistic and reminded her too much of the things she hated most about the 50s: the so called social mores and values one was expected to live up to. 'Far From Heaven' is perfectly shot in brilliant Technicolor with fine attention to detail: excellent costumes, gorgeous sets and beautiful vintage cars. This gives the movie an almost pristine surreal quality that counters the harsh reality of Cathy Whitaker's less than perfect life (Julianne Moore in yet another outstanding performance). Add to this the sometimes over the top "By gosh! By golly!" acting (no doubt done on purpose to further convey the surreal quality of 50s life) and you find yourself immersed in a frighteningly domestic Stepford wife world where housewives dress to the nines and gossip over daiquiris and husbands "work late" at the office. Cathy sleepwalks through her life aching for something that she can't quite comprehend. Her girlfriends chatter and giggle about how many times their husbands like to 'get into the mood" as she perturbedly stays quiet. When approached by her best friend about speaking to a Black man at an art exhibit she innocently replies: "He has some interesting views on modern art." When she finds her husband kissing another man, she thinks a vacation will solve all that. Cathy is so naive with herself and her surroundings and so intent on living the ideal 50s life that she's nearly oblivious to the changes around her, the changes she is causing and the changes that are waiting for her. When the film ended, I was anxious to know what lay in store for Cathy. Will she find true love and happiness? Will she champion the cause for equal rights? Will she finally become a strong willed and independent woman? Julianne Moore infuses so many subtle nuances into her portrayal of Cathy that although at times you want to slap some sense into her, you can't help but feel her pain, especially when she finally breaks down. Although the themes explored in 'Far From Heaven' have been tackled before, this film comes across as touching and heartfelt. It's a close call between Julianne and Nicole for this year's Best Actress Oscar. It is also noteworthy to see Julianne's performance as a depressed 50s housewife in 'The Hours' as well.
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Summary: Film neo-noir
Review: After viewing Far From Heaven, it took me a while to figure out that this film falls squarely into the genre of film noir. The movie begins with lush color and music that could have so easily been a mockery of films from the 1950's. Todd Haynes's deftness as director is to be commended for it is only rarely that the audience ever is snapped back to the reality of time. And only because Haynes needs us to. The movie on the surface seems to be about the inconsistencies of prejudice in the 1950's (as well as today). In Eisenhower's era, it was deemed unacceptable for races to mix on a social level. The twist runs even deeper when the husband (an avowed homosexual) is livid when even the slightest impropriety is suggested between his wife and the black gardener. Homosexuality was not acceptable at that time either, however, it was so buried in the American consciousness that it was merely the lifestyle of "deviants" and "perverts" - certainly not our successful hero and heroine. The husband took great pains to hide his "abnormality," but the wife was gossiped about as having an affair when she did nothing more than express open compassion and curiosity. Special mentions must go the superb acting of the entire cast, the exquisite art direction and costumes, and one of the best musical scores heard in years.
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Summary: A brilliant filmmaker revisits Sirk
Review: Far from Heaven is a revisit in style and substance to the films of Douglas Sirk - one of the unsung directors of the 1950s. It recaptures the look and the feel of Sirk's low key, but scathing satire on American society. Far from Heaven goes further to crack the veneer of American society and reveal the racism and the loathing present at the time. Moore plays the perfect wife of a corporate advertising executive played by Dennis Quaid, spending her time doing the perfect the dinner party. Quaid has deep and dark secrets and revealing his true self shatters her neat perfect world. In her despair, she makes a decision that cuts across the racial divide and then begins to see the narrow minded world she lives in. Everything about the film works perfectly with a superb performance from Moore as she wrestles with her demons and tries to maintain a polite face to the world. She is a good character whose world is ripped apart by forces beyond her control. The 1950s were described as 'enough to break a man' and this film is no sentimental excursion. It is a bleak and uncompromising and ultimately very touching film about human relations in an inhumane time.
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