Exiles on Main Street

IN FAR FROM HEAVEN, TODD HAYNES CRACKS THE 50S SUBURBAN MILIEU

HOT REELS

'She's as kind to her family as she is to Negroes," goes the write-up in the local society pages, an at-home profile of Cathy Whitaker, an exemplary 50s housewife who keeps an exemplary home in suburban Connecticut for exemplary husband Frank. But, hmmm, Cathy does have some funny ideas, and Frank's been working late an awful lot ... Can you guess which direction the Whitakers' lives will be heading? Far from Heaven, with Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid, goes way beyond paying mere homage to All That Heaven Allows, There's Always Tomorrow, and other mid-century dramas of unruly passions and neighborhood busybodies directed by Douglas Sirk. The writer and director of the new picture, Todd Haynes, has crafted a nearly frame-perfect replica of the style in every particular, from color palette and camera placement to editing rhythms and archaic, slightly stiff acting style. It's a stunning formal achievement, and there's a lot of arch wit in the "rightness" of the details. But Far from Heaven isn't a masturbatory film-student stunt, and it's especially not camp (though it does teeter once or twice vertiginously on the edge). With the mise en scene serving as its own button-down metaphor, Moore and Quaid tap reservoirs of real pain and longing beneath the artifice. The result may move you in an almost subliminal way, as haunting as an inadvertently remembered dream. Mention must also be made of Dennis Haysbert, who, as an African-American gardener, seems to be on hand in part as a representative of the forces of nature, though with all the crushing dignity and solemn-browed handsomeness Sidney Poitier would have brought to the role. Yes, this is one weird masterpiece. (Rating: ★★★★)

BRUCE HANDY