Matcollis This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Freeman This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Paul J. Nemecek The eight weeks between the Academy Awards and Memorial Day represent a period of time that film aficionados like to call movie purgatory. The Oscar-nominees are old news and the summer blockbusters are not yet here. Often in this period we get the wretched refuse-the poor, tired, muddled messes yearning to be movies. There are a good number of candidates playing right now but instead of reviewing them I would rather review one of the Oscar nominees coming out on video this week. So I will.Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven is a poignant and moving film about life in the fictitious fifties. It's not that the fifties are fictitious (I was there, I know) but the mythical version wherein the fifties were near to heaven is what is being challenged here. The theme is similar to that of Pleasantville, but the tones and sensibilities are very, very different.Julianne Moore plays a housewife at the center of the storm. Moore is one of those great actresses who has had the good taste to be cast in offbeat, independent films of great quality. This year she was in two somewhat offbeat films, The Hours and Far From Heaven. She plays a fifties housewife in both films, but in The Hours her story is one of three interwoven vignettes and there is not much time for character development by way of a dramatic arc to the character. Far From Heaven gives her room to move and move she does.She plays the wife of a successful businessman (capably played by Dennis Quaid), and they represent the all-American success story of the fifties complete with suburban home, family, the esteem of the community and so forth. There are actually only a few minor complications along the way. Her husband is gay and an alcoholic. As they come to terms with both of these facts, they see their model life unraveling fast. They find a doctor who they hope can make the problems go away, but things don't work out quite the way they hoped.In the midst of her despair, Moore's housewife keeps the secrets and tries to keep a stiff upper lip. She eventually finds understanding and solace in conversations with their gardener. The gardener is a college-educated man who owns a nursery. He is articulate, sophisticated, and a caring human being. He is also a black man living in a New England town in the fifties.When their friendship is interpreted as something more than a friendship, gossip permeates the town and relationships are strained to the point of breaking. She refuses to expose her husband's infidelities while she is being accused of improprieties herself.The subplots make it clear that this is really a film about social intolerance and deception, especially self-deception. We kid ourselves when we convince ourselves that our current reality, our epoch in history, is the next best thing to heaven. We usually do so by sweeping problems under the rug. By exposing the dark side of prejudice and intolerance in the fifties this movie shows us how far from heaven we really were-and are.

Davis P Far from Heaven is definitely one of the best films ever to be made. It stars Julianna Moore, Dennis Quaid and Patricia Clarkson. The writing and the screenplay is absolutely wonderful! The dialogue shared between the characters is so witty, enjoyable, and it's very smart/clever. The acting is wonderful here as well! Julianne Moore SHINES here! She so deserved that academy award nomination, and if you ask me, she should have won! Dennis was very good too, he played the emotional and distraught scenes very well, he was so very convincing in his role as a closeted gay man, which obviously wasn't nearly as widely accepted back in the 1950s time period. This movie addresses both LGBT and racial issues including harsh discrimination and prejudice feelings against both types of people, and the actors really show that so well! This movie is just a delight to watch, mainly because it's just so well made, well acted, and well written. It deserves every single one of its 4 academy award nominations! 10/10 for Far From Heaven!

Elsie Grant For this film I think that you have to be in the right mood to watch a very 50s cinema escape. What I have found when watching this movie is that the action is less intense compared to today's films. When the film reaches high tension plot points it has little impact because the music sets it up perfectly but the action is not as equal. In this uncensored generation of film watchers, it is a breath of fresh air to see a movie that can tell the emotions and subtext without all the gore and horror that can be found on today's screens. This is a very American film because it takes off the American film techniques from the 50's. If you are thinking of watching this film be aware that you might be pleasantly surprised or bored, you take the risk.

Red_Identity I decided to seek this one out because of Julianne Moore. I thought it would be just another well-acted period drama. What I didn't know was that Todd Haynes was behind it, and from the opening the film lets you know what kind of style it will be. It's not one of those stuffy period dramas. In fact, it's very much made in the style of actual 1950s films. It's apparently taking on the style of Douglas Sirks' films, and even though I have never seen one, the style is apparent. This is the definition of a melodrama, but it serves the purpose completely and not the type of melodrama you would expect in this day and age. Everything is heightened in it's intensity. The incredible cinematography and use of colors is something to marvel at, and in terms of how the cinematography was constructed I don't think any other film could compare to. The beautiful music score is perfect and it only makes the atmosphere richer. All of this serves as a backdrop to a film that's really about contemporary issues in the 50s. That in itself has been the focus of many films in the last few years, but Far From Heaven stands apart from them all. The screenplay is brilliantly written, infusing rich backgrounds and characterization to all of the characters. In fact, the plot is pretty straight-forward and something you would see in classic films of that era, but now it feels fresh, alive with excitement. It's never depressing, and instead it tells its story until a satisfying conclusion. It's probably one of the best screenplays of its decade.The performances are also perfect. But Julianne Moore tops off this perfection. I was surprised by how little "big" scenes she has. I would have expected this film to, but then again that's just another surprise. She embodies this character completely, and now that we have all of these flawed and unlikable leads, here we have one who we can easily call a "hero". Someone who others could look up to, we instantly connect with Moore. Overall, Far From Heaven is the 2nd Haynes film I have seen (the other being I'm Not There), and still his ambition is as apparent as ever. This feels as unique of a film as one could hope for.