Bon Journal

Far from heaven

All that glitters is not gold, indeed. Keep up the appearances. What you see is not what you get.

It is autumn, the beginning of the end. Yet, the colours of autumn leaves, as beautiful as they might be, will soon die and be forgotten.

Julianne Moore is Mrs Whitaker, model wife, mother, community leader and socialite. It is the image of the perfect American family in New England in the late 50's.

Within weeks, everything changes.

Life is full of contradictions. And this movie is full of them: a beautiful woman who is not desired by her husband, a good-looking man who has other desires, and a black gardener who is more cultured than most pretentious white businessmen.

A subtitle could be "Far from perfect." In striving for a perfect existence, the well-to-do families in Hartford, Connecticut, live in a very narrow minded definition of perfection, at least by today's standards. We have come far in our acceptance of multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-sexual co-existence. But prejudices remain.

People are, after all, social animals who prefer to belong rather than be alone. To belong, you have to share similarities not differences. It's so much easier to agree than to disagree. It's so much easier to go with the flow than try to swim against the tide.

It's no wonder that Mrs Witaker reveals that she felt the only person she could comfortably confide in was her black gardener. They are worlds apart in their race, religion, and social class. Perhaps it is because of these differences that they are able to relate so well.

"Far from heaven" is a beautiful movie which ends suggestively. What happens next, you wonder? Why did it end now? Then you may decide that it ended at the right moment. For everything that needed to be said has been said.

11 January 2004 Sunday

Related links:

analyticalQ movie reviews

Far From Heaven official site