Far from Heaven

Far from Heaven is a moving and thought-provoking drama about a young housewife, Cathy Whitaker, whose secure existence in a nice suburb in the mid-1950s suddenly collapses.

The house of cards begins to totter when Cathy's hard-working husband Frank confesses that he is attracted to men. Cathy had probably sensed that their relationship was not quite by the book, but chose to ignore it. The family tries for a long time to keep up appearances, but in the long run Frank is unable to suppress his homosexuality.

In her loneliness and desperation, Cathy strikes up a friendship with the black gardener Raymond, the only one who seems to understand her. But nothing can make tempers boil like a white woman associating with a black man. They can call it friendship as much as they like!

Cathy experiences how hypocrisy and prejudice are alive and well in the world she thought was hers. Even her best friend turns her back on her when Cathy confides in her.

Far from Heaven is a tribute to the Hollywood director Douglas Sirk's melodramas of the 1950s, which posterity has regarded as more than just harmless entertainment, for Sirk's films contain a hidden social critique beneath the spotless veneer. Like his role model, Todd Haynes exposes the middle class as superficial, prejudiced, petty and hypocritical. The well-composed and stylised images, lovingly crafted down to the smallest detail, reflect the outwardly harmonious and perfect petit-bourgeois life. Gradually, however, form and content end up on a collision course as the ugly sides of American society show their face.