Far From Heaven

Review: A+

Julianne Moore has always rep­re­sented some­thing pecu­liar to me – an actress who get all the best roles, but rarely con­vinces me that she’s worthy of that right. Case in point: Her accent in the Big Lebowski was down­right irri­tat­ing, have you seen the Ship­ping News(?), and the deal was sealed when she stepped into Jodie Foster’s shoes in Hannibal.

Yet people run around saying that she should be a nom­i­nated for 4 best-​actress oscars every year.

Well, let me temper my anger, because I’ve just watched Todd Haynes’ mas­ter­fully writ­ten and directed Far From Heaven, star­ring Moore and Dennis Quaid.

This film is a study in 1950s real­ism and atri­fice, from the open­ing cred­its and music score, to the hidden worlds of gender roles, sex­u­al­ity and race. If you want to know the basic story, you can read Wesley Morris’ Globe review here.

I agree with Morris’ asser­tion that Moore is absolutely incred­i­ble – warm, deter­mined, and nat­ural, in a way I’ve never seen before. And the film, despite its set­ting and time period, is a gen­uine and sym­pa­thetic story, treated untyp­i­cally with­out much irony. Haynes seems hell bent on re-​reconstructing the 50s nar­ra­tive in this tone, while includ­ing those nasty little issues that have always been either swept under the rug, or lam­basted as vir­u­lently as the Taliban.

One thing that struck me as odd, while watch­ing Far From Heaven, was that the Dennis Quaid char­ac­ter was given little of the sym­pa­thetic energy. What does it say that the gay Haynes has little to say about a clos­et­ted homo­sex­ual mas­querad­ing as a hetero Orga­ni­za­tion Man?

The crux of the story lies with Moore, and my two cents are that Julianne has earned her­self a truly deserv­ing oscar nomination.