Far From Heaven

Directed by: Todd Haynes
Starring: Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysburt, Patricia Clarkson, Viola Davis
Playing at: Opens November 22

The tension beneath the calm face of the 1950s

by Matt McCluskey

Melodrama, a mode of theatrical storytelling and classical film genre, lost most of its steam a few decades ago and has now become a sort of criticism in our modern language. To be melodramatic is to be too full of emotion and at the same time, too expressive of that emotion. Today films about intrafamilial conflicts and women who face difficult romantic choices are called family dramas or in on one of our most culturally crass phrasings: “chick flicks.” Very few directors nowadays work consistently in the melodramatic, with Allison Anders being the only example I can think of right now. But director Todd Haynes, known for edgy, somewhat controversial films (Superstar, Safe), decided that conventional wisdom be damned, he would make a melodramatic film that explores issues such as interracial coupling, spousal cheating, and homosexuality. Haynes literally flips the script on the melodrama but preserves the idyllic colorful images of the original 1950’s films.
The character we follow and feel closest to throughout Far From Heaven is Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore). Ms. Whitaker is the ideal homemaker, serving as mother, wife, cook, and social coordinator for her demographically perfect family. Cathy and her husband Frank (Dennis Quaid) live in a modestly large suburban home in Hartford, Connecticut. They have a first born male and a young daughter, and are involved in civic causes. In every way, the Whitaker family is a paragon of upper middle class existence. Frank has a high level position and everything in his life should be swell. But Frank’s sexual identity is not peachy keen, as one might say, and a sexual encounter with another man witnessed by Cathy cracks the Whitaker world in half.
That could be a whole film right there. A family and community confront homosexuality and its personal, family, and societal implications. Writer and director Haynes wants more, much more. The Whitakers have a black maid, Sybil (Viola Davis) and a black gardener, Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert). Slowly but surely, Cathy finds herself falling for the earnest, softly masculine Raymond as her husband falls out of love with her. Frank attempts therapy to cure his “problem,” but he is unable to ignore who he is, despite Cathy’s pleading and the fear of humiliation. While Cathy attempts to stay virtuous, to deny her impulses, and keep a good front with the ever gossiping socialites of Hartford, she finds it immensely difficult to keep up appearances in a community where her liberal ideas are nearly as scandalous as being seen in the black part of town.
Julianne Moore portrays the tragic heroine very well and it can go without saying that she will receive a bevy of nominations and probably a few shiny statuettes as a result of this performance (she already won the Best Actress prize at the Venice Film Festival). The billowy gowns Moore wears give her a matronly quality that will definitely surprise viewers who have seen her as a porn actress in P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights or a pill-popping trophy wife in Magnolia. Dennis Quaid, on the other hand, comes off less sympathetically as he embarks on a path of sexually-confused infidelity. He becomes a bad father and an alcoholic as the film progresses, but Haynes does his best to never lets any of these character traits get too extreme.
Haynes’ script preserves the circumspective language used to discuss taboo issues such as homosexuality and race relations during the less-enlightened 1950s, yet still manages to explore the issues with a few huge scoopfuls of irony for the modern audience. Haynes also stays true to the classical melodrama, especially that of director Douglas Sirk whose All That Heaven Allows serves as a template for Far From Heaven, by filling the frame with the vibrant primary and secondary colors which became popular during the post-war years.
The greatest difficulty I had with the film is that it looked way too much like the old melodramas. In playing it by the book in depicting this era and appropriating a genre to explore both the buried issues of the 50s and the highly publicized issues of the 21st century, Haynes may have tried to do too much at once and I have a hard time transporting myself into the domestic spaces of the world of my grandparents while still seeing the universality of the content.
Those who have never seen a melodrama and only know Douglas Sirk through the “Douglas Sirk steak” reference in Pulp Fiction can see Far From Heaven with a clear conscience. But those with experience in the field might feel a little uneasy and may have to run out to Blockbuster afterward to pick up something with Bette Davis or Jane Wyman on the box.

Bottom Line:
“…Haynes may have tried to do too much at once and I have a hard time transporting myself into the domestic spaces of the world of my grandparents while still seeing the universality of the content.”

Grade: B

Half Past Dead

Directed by: Don Michael Paul
Starring: Steven Seagal, Ja Rule, Morris Chestnut
Playing at: The Chase Park Plaza

Few things are better than Steven Seagal in a doo rag

by Bryan Keithley

Ever notice how the titles of Steven Seagal’s movies give us clues as to the range of his acting abilities? First he was Marked for Death, then Out for Justice (he apparently didn’t get it), then Under Siege, On Deadly Ground, and now Half Past Dead. Calling Seagal’s acting minimalist would be as understated as Seagal’s acting. (Don’t stay up all night puzzling over that.) Now the aging, paunchy martial arts star, who I don’t even think knows much martial arts, has another tight-lipped turn in a predictable action picture that is nonetheless well-executed.
In a “seen one of ‘em, seen ‘em all” scenario, Half Past Dead follows the patented Seagal carbon copy, which is reproduced thusly: an elite criminal special operations team infiltrates a sprawling complex, one that MUST have a fire-spewing furnace room for a big fight, among other locales. Seagal, a bystander that is always in the right place at the wrong time, rediscovers the latent ass-kicking skills he learned from his days as a military man. Waging a one-man war, he takes on the skilled baddies one by one, if not with the exquisite prowess of a Bruce Lee, at least with the middle-aged good-enough skills of . . . well, a Steven Seagal.
This time around Segal is the undercover Russian FBI man Sascha. Why Russian? No one knows, including Sascha and the screenwriter. Showing a remarkable desire to remain undercover, Sascha is imprisoned along with the criminals he had been in concert with, in ‘The Rock,’ Alcatraz, reopened in the very near future by some stuffy senator. While Seagal is chilling in his six by nine cell, a grim little man on death row is scheduled to be executed for a truly remarkable robbery of 200 million in gold bars he stole from the government. But before they can pull the switch, that requisite special operations team, led by Donny (Morris Chestnut), bust in and ‘rescue’ the condemned, in order to force him to betray the location of the stolen gold he had buried. Enter Steven “I’m just the cook” Seagal.
Why watch this movie? The sight of Seagal in a “doo rag” alone makes the price of admission worthwhile. Or perhaps the promise in the title of bringing Seagal close to death may tickle our more masochistic tendencies. Is it the sleepy-eyed-means-I’m-tough Ja Rule that brought us here?
Nay. The well-gathered cast of supporting characters is what separates this film from the pack, though not by much. There is El Fuego, the hard-bitten Latino head warden of Alcatraz, who is in many ways as tough as those he confines. There is also Nia Peeples, playing the second-in-command of the criminal operatives, a sexybutdeadly Asian woman with a atitude, who can strut the same stuff as the men. And there is the condemned inmate himself, older, quietly introspective, troubled. Overall, three cheers for this group of veteran TV actors (director Paul was himself a television actor).
But the content of the movie is a rip-off. The Rock (also set in Alcatraz), Con-Air, Die Hard, all of these did the same thing, but better. At this point the decision to be made is where Seagal is on the ladder in relation to Van Damme: now there’s a celebrity boxing match I’d like to see. There is a sense that director Don Michael Paul is also trying to cash in on some Rush Hour residue, giving his martial arts star an opportunity to “open up” in some comic moments with the funnyblackguy (also one word). Getting Seagal to open up is like squeezing blood from a rock. They had to have a chisel on set for the scenes where he cracked a smile. There’s no chemistry between Ja Rule and Seagal: didn’t the filmmakers learn in general chemistry that nothing reacts with Seagalium?
Overall, the supporting cast, including a genuinely charming group of black convicts, and an ever-thumping hard rap/rock soundtrack that eventually one gets into, give Half Past Dead a little separation. But its obvious formula and Seagal’s stone fa‡ade will turn many off.

Bottom Line: “The sight of Steven Seagal in a “doo rag” alone makes the price of admission worthwhile.”

Grade: B-

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