I was just at Box Office Mojo where they have recently created a rating system, and so far it has a D! It's just kind of weird, I mean, this is one of my favorite movies of all time!
shareI don't understand that myself... I just finished watching the film and it's now my new favourite!
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There are many reasons to hate this execrable movie. The fact that, despite the movie supposedly being anti-racist, the black gardener was an incredibly one dimensional, tokenistic character. The horribly overwrought score that drowned any possibility of real emotion under a sickly blanket of strings. The ridiculous political correctness of the story (race, gender AND sexual orientation? Why not have a disabled character too?), and the bland, stereotypical way all these elements were dealt with. The sneering attitude towards the 50s that this supposed 'homage' has, asking us to snigger at how prejudiced people were back then, and feel all comfortable with how things are now.
I don't think there's anything astonishing about any of this...
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The movie is one long sneer - nobody in the 1950s thought that life was exactly like Ozzie and Harriet. Obviously they knew their own experience. What this movie does is to create an over the top fictitious "land of the devil" like Pleasantville and dozens of others. As I mention in my review there was undoubtedly less prejudice in the North in the late 1950s (especially among the upper middle class in New England) than there is now. The movie is ridiculous in the way it looks down on the most sophisticated people in the most sophisticated country in the world in the 1950s, a country that was (due to a combination of foreign travel, foreign business and the recent experience of World War II) more at home with the world than any other. The movie imagines a wholly fictitious world and peoples it with cartoon idiots whom we are meant to jeer. It's awful.
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I came up in one of those "liberal" towns in Fairfield County and there was a significant population of African Americans downtown. There was never any acrimony or racial ugliness. Folks, black and white, went about their business and were very nice to one another. I went to a very fine public high school and there wasn't a scintilla of tension between the majority whites and the minority students. To call Connecticut liberalism, more 'self-congratulatory artifice than real' was never my experience. I think you protest too much, with all due respect.
The real artifice is generated from the folks who reside in those very affluent towns and honed the concept of "NIMBY." From what I was able to discern, it wasn't race based, but generated of maintaining a 'nice, pleasant order of life and heaven help the person, Black or White, who get in their way.
Ask your Dad if he remembers the flap over Route 7, nearly 35 years ago. The rich town prevailed, of course, but not for reasons to do with race.
Finally, Fup, consider this-- Connecticut elected the first female governor. But, to be fair to you, the section of my town where Blacks lived has been gentrified up the wazoo. These folks left because it was just too expensive for them to live in Connecticut, as is the case with many white people. But liberalism lives on-- that part of town is tres gay and they seem very happy and comfortable and open about it and don't feel alienated one whit.
Sorry, didn't mean to go off on a tangent.
Don't you snap your finger at ME, lady.
I'm from Fairfield, CT!
shareYou didnt understand the movie.
sharejust because people up north didn't run around calling black folk *beep* doesn't mean that racism wasn't that bad.
shareI couldn't agree more. I had read a lot about this movie before it came out and pretty much hated it, exactly for its sneering attitude. I could never really put my finger on what I disliked so much, thank you.
Oh well, it did make me curious about "All That Heaven Allows", which I rented soon after seeing this. My friend and I were like, "Oh THAT'S what 'Far From Heaven' was trying to be". ATHA is one of my favorite movies now.
"It's as if God created the Devil...and gave him...JAWS"
the only reason they had racism, sexism and homophobia in this film is because back then they were *beep* big issues.
shareThe movie is no realistic. The problem is that it isn't for everyone. Only poeple who have a slight sence of what movies were like in Hollywood's golden era will like i for what it is. The color is so good, along with the music, that you can love it just for that and not for the story.
I actually laught when the tittle appear, so glamorous, so ridiculous, and at that precise momento I knew the way the movie was going to take, in a sence. When people talked they didn't really acted naurally, as they do now, but sort of exagerated things, almoust singing. Also the way they pass from scene to scen with a Fade, not a quick-shot (this was pracicaly a rule in those Hollywood times) and obviously the PERFECT FAMILY facete. I'll tell you:
The good thing about this movie is that it tell the most serious thing is the ridiculous matter of Hollywood's golden era. If people hate it, is because it isn' for everybodo. Personally, I liked this a lot and alos like the X-Men and have watch the Matrix pictures and liked them a little. But I'm practically alone in the sece of "I can watch everything."
you people are idiots! this movie isnt supposed to be realistic. its supposed to be mimicking a 50's melodrama, that is a movie made in the 50's, which if youve ever seen one youd know thats exactly how they were. its not supposed to be realistically portraying the 1950's in america, so dont compare it to real life.
shareThank you. It's an homage, written , directed, acted and filmed as if it were made in 1957. The artifice and supposed 'sneering' talked about is a misunderstanding of the movies intent.
shareAre you saying racism, sexism and homophobia aren't big issues now?
shareTo truly appreciate this movie you need to see at least one of the Douglas Sirk movies it's paying tribute to. It doesn't do justice to read about Sirk movies, you have to see them. They are visually beautiful, and he handles social issues in a way most directors couldn't during the 1950s. I suggest getting the Criterion DVD of All That Heaven Allows. It's the movie Far from Heaven draws most directly from. If you combine this thinking with the plotlines of a few other Sirk films you'll realize why the Haysbert's character acts the way he does, you'll understand Moore's motivation and you'll see how the entire town is constructed right from a Sirk movie.
You can't review Far From Heaven until you understand the context.
Gee I disagree. I'd seen most of Douglas Sirk's moves, including All That Heaven Allows. I nver feel that Sirk is looking down on, sneering at his characters - as I certainly do watching this. "Just terrible writhing pawns, perennial victims of the world" is this movie's view of its characters - not Sirk's.
shareThe only reason the black character was one dimensional was because it was a small role so there wasn't much room for him to become more dimensional. Anyways, why just because he was a nice guy does that make him one dimensional? And the score is beautiful---it was just done in the style of the 50s so you probably aren't sophisticated enough to understand it.
Plus, it isn't all that politically correct. The gay character is sort of a jerk. For instance, he lies to his wife, slaps her, and screams at her. And when he hears about how that little black girl Sarah got hit by rocks, all he does is say, " Son, turn on the TV."---even though he's a minority, too, so he should have more compassion and concern.
Plus you said the film is "asking us to snigger at how prejudiced people were back then, and feel all comfortable with how things are now" which is not true. Moore's character wasn't prejudiced. And Quaid's character wasn't either, because he supported the NAACP, which Moore tells Haysbert at the art show. Also, it doesn't ask us to see how wonderful now is because it doesn't even talk about now at all.
Reasons why FFH was good:
* The whole cast did good jobs
* It had beautiful cinematography
* It was a good script
Oh, I think the movie has a terrible script - moronic, carton-like - and perhaps worst of all leading thos who didn't live in those times or places to have a completely erroneous idea of the views of race then. Totally wrong!
None of the characters seems to have a brain in his/her head. They're just cartoons. I kept laughing in the theater. It's that cartoon-like stylization that makes it so dreadfully sneering at the characters. Sirk didn't do that.
Might as well make a movie about how the Ku Klux Klan regularly rode up 5th Avenue scaring black people in New York City in the 1990s. It's ridiculous.
Dude, he wasn't one-dimensional. How can anyone think that? Just because he didn't yell or flail around during the movie... OK, let's see: a black guy who's very educated, intelligent and artistic, who has no choice but to be a gardener and keep his head down most of the time, but also attempts to behave as a dignified human being and pursue cultural activities, in a large part for the sake of his daughter's education and development; a man who fully sees and understands the racial divisions and mistrust on part of both blacks and whites, but, partly out of sympathy for Cathy and partly out of his own desire for freedom and dignity, convinces himself for a moment that these divisions can be overcome by two reasonable and consenting adults; when this dream comes crashing down, he suppresses his feelings for Cathy and does what's best for his daughter by moving out of town and refusing to stay in contact with her, and despite the pain that this causes him, in the last scene he looks at Cathy serenely, to give her the strength to follow through with their decision to stay apart.
He isn't a one-dimensional character, he's a marvelously complex and tormented character. Dennis Haysbert didn't have to indulge in histrionics to convey all this - he gave a restrained performance, and most of these aspects were presented circumstantially by the screenplay and by reflection from other, less emotionally-restrained characters, primarily Cathy. We know his thoughts and feelings in a large part through Julianne Moore's dialogue and acting, and the way he reacts to them. C'mon guys, this is some brilliant work.
You hit it on the head on some things meaning the gay men in the closet are just as racist as the ones out of the closet. Plus they did nonething but be shocked that this White woman was with that black gardener. It is hardly PC however since they were not treated like Blacks case in point when Frank went to see another man in the same hotel in Miami a Southern city.
sharenew orlenas in a southern city kansas cith is midwestern whats your point.
shareThere are many reasons to hate this execrable movie. The fact that, despite the movie supposedly being anti-racist, the black gardener was an incredibly one dimensional, tokenistic character. The horribly overwrought score that drowned any possibility of real emotion under a sickly blanket of strings. The ridiculous political correctness of the story (race, gender AND sexual orientation? Why not have a disabled character too?), and the bland, stereotypical way all these elements were dealt with. The sneering attitude towards the 50s that this supposed 'homage' has, asking us to snigger at how prejudiced people were back then, and feel all comfortable with how things are now.
I don't think there's anything astonishing about any of this...
I puked after about 20 minutes, but was forced to sit thru most of it anyway. rhat's true love
my favorites are Harlow and Garbo. I guess I'm just an old fashion guy
This movie really was more about now then about the 50's. It's ridiculous that you don't mention that almost all of the actions the characters took were extremely surface level. That was what it commented on (Do you even remember the dialoge they had in front of the cinema?). She was living a lie (and so was everyone else expect Raymond and you know what happend to him, don't you). Her husband didn't love her but it seems like that was fine. She didn't really care about her kids (I guess they grow up and won't be that surace level, no wait that's scarcasm) while she probably loved them. Looks like that was fine too and then when she falls in love with a man it's highly problematic because a) she is confronted with her life and b) society doesn't think that's good. When society gives you *beep* all the time it's not really that easy. In society you will always get that weird look if you don't think like everyone else (Maybe it's a little better now but if you think that that has vanished you've been living under a rock) and that's not actually that cool. Society makes you remain surface level.
When you make a historic movie about racism you always have people comparing it to now but that's not what it's supposed too since it's no hommage too the 50's it's a hommage on the melodramas of the 50's (that often extagarated). I think most movies about racism do the topic injustice since they don't really do more than say: "racism is bad mkay". That makes the movies feel extremely awkward and even slightly racist. It's not like this in the case of Far from Heaven since this movie isn't mainly about racism. It's about what causes racism. Damn. Had to be said.
And in the story might be extagarated but it's not like racism wasn't widely spread in the 50's and it's not like people were okay with homosexuality. It's not like it's so far from reality (if at all - I wasn't alive in the 50's).
This movie is actually considered to be one of the best movie of the 21st century by people that are very serious about film - critics, film proffesors etc. (I think it's the hugest list of it's kind). If you were right why isn't Crash (2004)? Look at #23 http://www.theyshootpictures.com/21stcentury_films50-1.htm
I'll give you that some critics aren't the smartest guys but Dogville is a slightly more complex movie and it's found at #24. Would the same people list a dumb movie about racism and a complex movie about heavily philosopical issues?
I'm just saying this because if you say what you said to a general guy he will probably agree but you should reconsider if you understood it or not.
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You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were and I say Why not?
Thank you. Couldn't have said it better myself. I lived through the 50's as a married suburban housewife working for CORE and NAACP as a white military officer's wife. Talk about problems!
But this movie was so stereotypical over-the-top trying to be liberal crap. It is offensive to gay men and black women and I've only watched one hour before it became tedious Hollywood version of "issues"
The racism and anti-gay sentiment was more subtle in public and more violent in small groups.
What sticks with me is how women in general were and are forced to behave.
The ridiculous political correctness of the story (race, gender AND sexual orientation?
Id rather peel the skin off my body and then drown myself in a tub of salt then see this movie again.
Its awful,just awful.
I did not think the movie was awful - I gave it a 7 - but I just would not watch it again. I would not recommend the film to anyone other than it is worth a look. I liked the music but then I am a big Elmer Bernstein fan. I also liked the feel of the 50s the film tried to develop but, overall, Far From Heaven seemed somewhat clautrophobic to me. I was 14 during the time the film occurred and remember quite a few of the things the filmmakers tried to depect. I lived in an upper middle class neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio and remembered how my friends thought I was strange for befriending one of the few Black kids in my school, how a few years later, I was at a girlfriend's barbecue when her father and others stopped everything to find out why a Black male was in the neighborhood. I vividly remember how, during my junior year in high school, I encouraged the wrath of my parents and extended family because I started dating my best friend's sister who just happened to be Chinese. The young minister at my church who, at that time I used to admire, even talked to me about the problems of interracial marriage. All those events changed the direction of my life drastically so I was able to make a complete split from my previous life and was able to see everything more clearly. The 60s were more than just anti-war, civil rights and free love -- they were about liberation and shaking off the chains that binded and controlled our society until that time.
shareBut the huge difference is between the uppe rcrust of one of the most liberal towns in the country - Hartford Connecticut - and the (then) small city of Columbus Ohio. Hartford was HUGE NAACP country - it was the state from which thousands throughout the 1950s went to the South to register people, to de-segregate lunch counters, etc.
The movie is just ridiculous. The upper middle class at the time in places like Hartford on weekends were deciding whether to go to the Billie Holiday concert, a Sidney Poitier movie, drive down to New York City to watch Willie Mays and Monte Irvin play for their New York Giants, or watch the Nat King Cole Show.
I don't think the filmmaker has any idea just HOW pro-integrationist, deliberately black inclusive Hartford Connecticut was in the late 1950s. There was probably no provincial, state or county capital in any country in Europe or North America in the late 1950s in which people sought friendship and closeness to Negroes more than Hartford.
There were massive rallies in Connecticut to "show the nation what Connecticut htinks" whenever anti-lynching bills were proposed in Congress. There were huge numbers of students who'd venture down from Trinity and U.Conn. and Yale to the South in 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959 - to show solidarity with blacks.
This whole thing is just CRAZY. It's like seeing a movie about American colonialism in India in the 1850s - and you scratch you headr and think "Gee, I thought it was the British in India". But it doesn't matter to the filmmaker - he does what he thinks will sell.
I think if Todd Haynes had wanted to make a realistic and historically accurate film he would have made a completely different one. The main subject of Far from Heaven is Hollywood melodrama of the 1950s, particularly the films of Douglas Sirk to whom it pays homage. Haynes films his story as he believes it would have been filmed by a maker of melodramas, like Sirk, working within the Hollywood conventions of his time. Sirk's films are no more realistic or historically accurate than Far from Heaven. What concerns Sirk is the drama and the emotion. The colours, music and acting styles all play an important part in this.
I am sure Sirk would have loved Haynes's film. The only real difference between Far from Heaven and one of Sirk's melodramas is that Haynes has the freedom to introduce a couple of themes that would have been out of bounds for Sirk: homosexuality and the white woman/black man relationship. These themes are not introduced to make the film more realistic. They are treated, I believe, just as Sirk would have treated them.
Todd Haynes clearly set out his agenda for this film, in the presskit, the published script and in the numerous interviews he gave at the time of the film's release. The film he made follows that agenda precisely. Some people will hate this kind of movie, fair enough, but to criticize it, as some have done here, for not being something the writer/director never intended it to be is like criticizing a football player for not playing baseball.
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I think Ebert put it well:
"The key to the power of "Far from Heaven" is that it's never ironic; there is never a wink or a hint that the filmmakers have more enlightened ideas than their characters. This is not a movie that knows more than was known in 1957, but a movie that knows exactly what mainstream values were in 1957--and traps us in them, along with its characters.
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Because the film deliberately lacks irony, it has a genuine dramatic impact; it plays like a powerful 1957 drama we've somehow never seen before. The effect is oddly jolting: Contemporary movies take so many subjects for granted that they never really look at them. Haynes, by moving back in time, is able to bring his issues into focus. We care about the characters in the way its period expected us to."
I agree with him. If this movie approached its events from a 21st century viewpoint, and explicitly judged its characters according to our morality, it would just be a piece of smug propaganda. But we are perfectly capable of rendering judgment ourselves, without being prodded in that direction by the screenplay. By playing it completely straight as a '50s drama with the themes made more explicit, this film does come off as "the best and bravest movie of 1957," seeming almost like a genuine cultural artifact. That was Todd Haynes's plan, and I think it was a worthy one.
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What is the rate of Interacial relationships in Hartford in the 50's? I find it strange myself but most of the books I read and the tv movies I had seen of Hartford shows a city a bit more southern and not hugly liberal.
shareExplain this then, in 2010
http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/5559855047/
"what is your major malfunction numbnuts?!!"
It's one of the best movies of the past decade. If you disagree, then I have no idea what to say to you. I mean... what do you say to people with bad taste? There are many people, especially those who voted The Matrix into the top 250, who lack the patience and intelligence necessary to appreciate a film like this one. Oh, well.
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Patience and Intelligence? This movie failed because it was simplistic, shallow, and obvious. I'm not a huge Matrix fan, but I think you're making a mistake putting Far From Heaven above The Matrix in terms of being thought-provoking and complex.
shareI disagree. Sorry.
By the way...
This movie failed because it was simplistic, shallow, and obvious
How, exactly, did it fail? It received universal praise, and several major Oscar nods.
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To reiterate: This movie failed because it was simplistic, shallow, and obvious. As in, the characters were flat, the plot was banal, the outcome was obvious about 30 minutes into the movie, the moral statement was tired and overplayed, the movie relied too much on cinematic gimmickry and not enough on actual writing and acting (Moore aside), and I won't start about the music. And Julianne Moore's accent was awful, but I'll forgive her since hardly anyone else in Hollywood can get their accents straight, either.
Basically, it was a pretty movie with a feel-good moral, but not much else going on.
Sure, people keep saying they like it, good for them. But have very many people had much to say about it besides it was pretty and the story was great and Moore was great? No, not really. Care to take a stab? You've asked me to explain why I thought the movie was bad, it's only fair you share why you liked it...I'm curious to know what it is people are missing that requires so much patience and intelligence.
This movie failed because it was simplistic, shallow, and obvious.
You do understand that, in the films of the fifties, the emotions of the characters were always shown at surface level, right? Very little was hidden from the audience. As for it being shallow, all of the characters make drastic decisions that they don't explain. Their motivations are working on a deeper level.
It's not that the movie requires maximum intelligence to be appreciated. You have to approach it intelligently. You have to be aware of what they are trying to do, and what exactly they are playing around with. And since you were bugged by the score, I have to ask if you've ever seen a film like this. In this case, Todd Haynes is using the specific style of the 1950s to bring up more modern issues, such as hate crimes, racism, and homosexuality. And furthermore, he examines these issues using the mentality from the period.
As for why I like, I think it's just a strong movie in every respect. The score, the acting, costumes, design, writing, etc.
And Julianne Moore's accent was awful, but I'll forgive her since hardly anyone else in Hollywood can get their accents straight, either.
I don't think you really need to forgive her, as her accent was fine.
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Yes, modern themes in a bygone era, stylistically presented in the look and feel of the times, I get it. I just don't find that to be very unique or intelligent, although it is a very pretty cliche, I'll give it that much. If I see one more movie or play that addresses racism and homosexuality in a mid-20th century style, though, I'll go crazy.
The fact (for me, anyways) is that because of the stylistic and plot setup of this movie, the conclusion was pre-supposed, meaning that because of the style that is bashed down our throats, we already know what the lesson is going to be before we get anywhere. Also, since the characters are shown at the surface level as you mention, the hollowness of the movie doubles. You call it a stylistic quirk, I call it a bad choice by the director and a disservice to what could have been some interesting characters. You can portray the issues at hand with consideration to the mentality from the period without dumbing down the movie. Maybe this movie tried to do that, I don't know.
Well, I guess we're not going to agree on this. What else do you wanna talk about?
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I took this film as something that would have been made in the 1950's if they were able to tell a story like this back then. So everything about it is frozen in time (sets, direction, fashions, dialog, music, etc.) except what can be shown & dealt with (homosexuality, bi-racial romance). This movie is NOT meant to represent the 50's, but a film that was made back then. Specifically a "woman's picture" as they were called. Imagine Doris Day & Rock Hudson starring in this (had they been given an opportunity to star in a drama together prior to their comedies) or Lana Turner & John Gavin.
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Had you seen Island in the Sun starring Harry Belefonte? The director held back the extent of interracial romance between him and Deborah Kerr.
shareThis movie was predictable. And it didn't really have a story. Someone told me it was about homosexuality and racism in the 50s. I went to see it. I was disappointed. The movie was summed up in the couple of sentences my friend told me before I watched it. The movie was just bland and too long.
shareInitially I was not sure about this film, but then Julianne Moore's subtle performance gradually won me over, the way she registered a change in her consciousness and then conveyed its limits when society weighed down on her convinced me well enough.
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I liked the movie very much also -- but I liked "All That Heaven Allows" too --obviously-- and, since this remake was so nearly the same in everything (except the actors) ... so, why did they bother to redo what was already done so well?
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There are no ordinary moments; there's never nothing going on
Of course people hate this movie...there are no car crashes or explosions, no one gets killed, no one does drugs, no one tries to sleep with someone half their age, the people who sleep with each other are married, no one farts, no one gets a wedgie, and a white person is friendly with a black person.
shareWhat can I say? Some people just have no taste
"Why... so... serious?"
I totally love this movie too! It is wonderful!
shareThe majority of people in the U.S. have extremely questionable taste in film, so it is no surprise to me that it had a D on Box Office Mojo. It's an excellent film. However, it is a film mainly for film buffs, and that excludes a great number of other individuals.
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