Movie Reviews
FROM OUT OF THE DARK – Far From Heaven
First, a minor point of contention: Far From Heaven got robbed at the Oscars. Elmer Bernstein should have won Best Musical Score, Julianne Moore should have won Best Actress, and the film itself should have garnered a nomination for Best Picture (maybe not a win, but at least a nomination, dammit). But I digress. Bitching about the Oscars is like bitching about the weather—nothing will change, and nobody really cares what you have to say about it anyway.
Directed by Todd Haynes, Far From Heaven is a love story that takes place in the historical and cinematic 1950s. Narratively, Eisenhower is President, men are Company Men, and homosexuality and inter-racial romance exist only as urban myths and far-out gossip. Cinematically, the film is shot and scored like early Hollywood noir and “women’s films” or “weepies”. In it, a company bigwig (Dennis Quaid) and his house wife (Julianne Moore) enjoy a Leave it to Beaver-ish marriage, complete with two incredibly intelligent and loyal children, supportive neighbors, and more toothy smiles and perfect hair than you’d see in a shampoo commercial.
The film is able to resurrect the old-Hollywood style and archetypes, while still crafting a story full of real characters with real emotions. The movie is flashy and overtly stylistic, but here the style serves the substance. When Cathy (Julianne Moore) catches her previously sitcom-perfect husband, Frank (Dennis Quaid), in the embraces of another man, the swelling melodramatic score and harsh noir-ish lighting use the conventions of 1950s suspense to let us feel just how deviant these acts were once-upon-a-time perceived.
Once part of a pristine, cookie-cutter, Technicolor nuclear family, Cathy and Frank’s world tears apart beneath the visual perfection. Frank discovers he is homosexual and Cathy develops romantic feelings towards a local black man, Raymond Deagon (Dennis Haysbert). Through these relationships, shown in the film to be viewed as horrific and deviant, Cathy and Frank learn that love and human relations rarely fit into the pre-carved slots of community approved mores.
Cathy and Frank try desperately to keep control of their worlds and relationships, even try to heal their marriage, but like any good 50s melodrama or noir, shit happens. People spy and towns gossip, strange new femme-fatale-like lovers appear out of nowhere, hearts get broken, and characters learn that despite the humblest of intentions, the world sucks. They follow their hearts’ desires, but while free from the constraints of artifice and conformity, they nevertheless are taken on a whirlwind of depression and antagonism.
Just as the characters are ripped and thrown from their world of aesthetic perfection into one of emotional turmoil, the viewer is shown that under the romanticism of Hollywood and the values it presents, love is beautiful, yes, but also hard, unpredictable, and more importantly, sometimes hated or opposed — thus, love is often impossible to hold on to or even grasp in the first place.
In the end, Cathy and Frank are left in a world suddenly lonely, a future uncertain. And like them, the viewer may long for that past era of Hollywood happy endings and happier families. But, after experiencing the liberating and enlightening events of Far From Heaven, I doubt Cathy, Frank, or any of us would go back if given the choice. For while that world may be prettier, the ignorance it represents is much darker than any noir thriller could ever hope to be.
-J.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GROWING ROSES OUT OF CONCRETE – A REVIEW OF “FLOWER & GARNET”
Flower & Garnet is a new Canadian movie written and directed by Keith Behrman. Like most Canadian dramas, Flower & Garnet is a slow paced, character driven film. Moments of silence, contemplation, resolve, and emotional repression fill the story, rather than scenes of violent action or melodramatic wailing. Behrman fills his frame with empty landscapes, fields, drab bedrooms, and unpaved driveways. The characters are equally desolate, and as such, much of the success of the film depends on its actors.
Jane McGregor, as Flower, is able to create a character that is both worldly and naïve, steely yet weak. The always-excellent Callum Keith Rennie, as Ed, spends most of the film simmering below boil—you don’t readily see his pain, but to the actor’s credit, you most definitely feel it. The film’s star and anchor, however, is the amazingly evocative Colin Roberts as Garnet. Only eight years old, Roberts carries the film on his slightly hunched back, his Garnet never once presenting a false moment or missed note.
Sixteen-year old Flower and her eight-year old brother Garnet share a close relationship. After their mother dies when giving birth to Garnet, the siblings develop a close bond to compensate for their emotionally vacant father. Their father, Ed, is still so hurt after eight years of mourning that he is unable to look at Garnet (or anyone else) lovingly, secretly holding in his contempt towards the boy for his wife’s death.
In the absence of a caring father, Flower adopts the role of mother to Garnet. But as Flower approaches adulthood, experiencing puberty, sex, and eventually pregnancy, she begins to concentrate more on her own problems rather than Garnet’s. At Flower’s urging, Ed does his best to participate more in the raising of Garnet despite his own emotional problems.
As her name suggests, Flower is delicate, soft and caring, but like a flower growing towards the sun, she has direction and purpose. On the other hand, like his namesake, Garnet is hard, small, seemingly devoid of warmth, and like a small stone, goes where he is kicked, carried or thrown without protest. But the film succeeds in showing that Flower is naïve and hurting inside just as much as anyone else, despite her apparent maturity and head-on-her-shoulders demeanor, and that Garnet is more sensitive to what goes on around him than people are aware.
The film explores the idea of people of different ages and maturity levels all struggling to be adults. And while some may find the pacing of the film unbearably slow, the message of the film still stands out: we are all fragile inside, and we all need to be taken care of sometimes.
-J.