‘That was the day I stopped believing in the wild ardor of things…’
I’ve been revisiting the work of Todd Haynes recently after the success of May December. While I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get on board with Velvet Goldmine, I thoroughly enjoyed his Dylan biopic and Carol is one of the great anti-Christmas films. Far From Heaven, released in 2002, was nominated for four Oscars and is perhaps Haynes’ most accomplished work…
Cathy (Julianne Moore) and Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid) appear to have the perfect life. Two children. Big house. Well-liked in the community. When Cathy begins spending time with her black gardener Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) following a shocking discovery, the 1950s Connecticut community in which they live begins to turn on them.
This is hardly the first film to peer behind the white picket fence of suburban America but it is one of the most effective. Evoking Mad Men and other period pieces of the era, Far From Heaven feels not old-fashioned but classic. This is a film that doesn’t just feel set in the ’50s but of the ’50s. Only the bold colour palette and the modern approach to race and gender mark this out as a film not from the golden age of Hollywood. Moore is an actress who has always been able to fit perfectly into any role and any era and she is exceptional here effectively delivering two performances, the perfect facade and the quietly desperate reality. Quaid is also excellent, seething with rage and entitlement, perfectly encapsulating the toxic masculinity of the age. The whole thing is wrapped up in Elmer Bernstein’s sweeping, Oscar-nominated score. It’s a heady mixture and the result is the kind of film that only fully reveals itself following repeated viewings. This is so much subtlety and subtext here that I immediately wanted to watch Far From Heaven again as soon as the credits rolled.
While May December is undoubtedly an excellent film, if I were to recommend just one Todd Haynes picture it would be this one. An unqualified success.