Far From Heaven

* * *

In the fall of 1957 I was six years old, and forty-six years later this movie took me by the hand and led me back to that time in an almost imperceptible flash. Within seconds of opening scene I was returned back to that time of peace and plenty. That time when everyone seemed the same. That time when your father worked and your mother stayed home. Your friends were all white or they were all black but none of them were gay

The Whitakers live in Hartford, Connecticut where they observe the social etiquettes of the day. Their family life and social environment is a quiet pursuit for status and the constant race to keep up with the Joneses. Cathy Whitaker (Moore) spends her time in that constant motion of homemaker, mother, wife as Frank (Quaid) is a man on his way to the top.

This almost perfect world begins to shatter when Frank is picked-up by the police while soliciting another man for sex. At first Frank tells her that it was only a mistake but as the film progress’s he cannot deny his deeper feelings. It’s during this time that Cathy meets Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) her new gardener. This well spoken and gentle black man becomes the person that draws Cathy out of her experience and her pain.

This movie harks back to Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows, in which Jane Wyman loses her heart to gardener Rock Hudson, but with the difference of perspective. If you are a Julianne Moore fan this is a must see and if you’re a Quaid fan this is a movie roll unlike any he has ever played. These performances are so electric, alive and sensitive that you begin to feel almost voyeuristic.