This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Society's Child
Plot Overview
Hartford, Connecticut's Weekly
Gazette, a “good society paper,” is doing a puff
piece on a cool couple Cathy Whitaker (Julianne Moore) & her
husband Frank (Dennis Quaid.) “Behind every great man there's
a great woman,” declares the columnist. She's “a woman
who's devoted to her family and,” in 1957 parlance,
“she is kind to Negroes.”
Frank had “problems” when younger but that's behind him now. Yet the police pick him up when after a few drinks, while scoping out a “loiterer” he was involved in a fender bender. His wife had to come pick him up from the station where the vice squad in back was discussing “a big time faggot, family man, you never can tell.”
After working late again he stops off at a movie house where he observes a man pick up a guy in the lobby and go to a bar. Frank follows them there. Lots of men in that bar. No women. When Cathy brings Frank a hot dinner to his (closed) office, she finds him in a compromising situation.
Dr Bowman (James Rebhorn) lays it out: “Today, the general attitude regarding this sort of behavior is naturally more modern, more scientific than it ever has been before,” he says. “But for those who do seek treatment, who possess the will and desire to lead a normal life, there still remains only a scant five to thirty percent rate of success — for complete heterosexual conversion.” Frank signs on.
He finds it more
difficult than he supposed, and he takes out his frustration on his
wife. His boss seeing he's under stress gives him thirty days
R&R. They take
it in Florida where, unfortunately, there's a lot of action in
the sun, which doesn't bode well for their marriage.
Where
is the “great woman” in all this? Why, she's seeking
comfort from their buck Negro gardener, Raymond Deagan (Dennis
Haysbert) who takes her to a soul food joint to get her mind
off her troubles. They are spotted by town gossip Mona Lauder
(Celia Weston) resulting in a royal scandal.
Ideology
Gardener Deagan is a go-getter. He's a widower with a precocious pickaninny Sarah (Jordan Puryear) whom he wants to have more opportunity than he's had, although he's not doing all that bad. He has an under-utilized business degree. Besides having taken over for his passed pop's gardening work, he has a tool shop downtown and drives a pickup truck. He's an art aficionado whom we see admiring an abstract painting in a gallery. He tells fellow admirer Cathy, “That perhaps it's just picking up where religious art left off, somehow trying to show you divinity. The modern artist just pares it down to the basic elements of shape and color. But when you look at that Miró, you feel it just the same.”
There's an artistic aesthetic to “Far From Heaven,” which, too, can be taken as religious art pared down. Cathy lost her purple scarf to a gust of wind, which Raymond found “hanging on one of the birch branches out back.” He compliments her color coordination when he returns it. When much later Frank phones her from a motel room, we see his lover-boy Kenny sprawled on the bed dressed down to his white cotton undershirt. Finally, when it's time to say goodbye to Raymond, Cathy wraps her head in that scarf like a babushka. If it's just a matter of form, we can see the uncovered then covering in the following religious drawing:
The licensor's alternate image text explains Noah, “When he drank some of the wine, he got drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers who were outside. Shem and Japheth took a garment and placed it on their shoulders. Then they walked in backwards and covered up their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so they did not see their father's nakedness (Genesis 9:21-23).”
The Bible's account
introduces servitude. (Gen. 9:24-27)
“And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son [Ham]
had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants
shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of
Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he
shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his
servant.” When Noah woke up, he blessed as a pair the lines
of his two respectful sons and cursed Ham's line—pairing
Ham with his youngest son Canaan as was Noah's wont to go by
twos—giving them servitude to his other two sons'.
(Jasher 73:35) “For the Lord our God gave Ham the son of
Noah, and his children and all his seed, as slaves to the children
of Shem and to the children of Japheth, and unto their seed after
them for slaves, forever.” From Shem come the Semites, and
from Japheth the Whites and most everybody else.
More germane to modern times is perhaps the lineage of Cush, Ham's oldest son (Gen. 10:6,) Cush meaning black in Hebrew, having settled in Africa, some of his to become in later years African slaves. Researcher Bodie Hodge confirms that, “As a general trend, Ham is the father of many peoples in Africa” (122). Dr. Ide adds, “Ham sired four sons: Cush (translates as ‘black’) … and Canaan the youngest” (62).
The Southern states of the Bible Belt
employed this ready source of conscripts in their labor-intensive
agriculture, while the Yanks up north didn't feel the
need so much in their industrial commerce. The Union dissolved into
a Civil War. Liberator Lincoln never belonged to any church, and
the locals considered him an infidel with an idolatrous regard for
consent of the people. By and by, there's an incident in Little
Rock, Arkansas, which is discussed by the people in this movie,
similarities and differences with them. Raymond eventually
concludes it's unworkable for him to try to belong to another world.
The Whitakers' colored maid Sybil (Viola Davis) is hard-working, content, and polite. We don't feel she needs liberating.
Deagan's daughter Sarah informs some boys the reason—with a sexual innuendo—their paper planes won't fly (“You gotta throw it straighter and hard”) is there's too much weight in the rear. They've gotta be hetero balanced.
In Florida a colored worker comes out
and seeing his boy get into the pool, tells him, “Martin! You
know you're not supposed to go in there. Now, what did I tell you
about going in that pool?” Cathy to be a great wife, would
need to have exercised like vigilance over Frank, knowing he's
struggling with temptations, not leave him by himself to face
them alone. Although it was he who committed the forbidden act,
Cathy unwittingly helped engineer it and was herself prey to
what Jimmy Carter & Jesus Christ called adultery in the heart.
Where we can break it down is, (Prov. 30:20) “Such is the way of
an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith,
I have done no wickedness.” There's a line represented by the
lips. Food on the inside of the line, in the mouth, is acceptable,
food outside it, on the face, is not. Cathy justifies
herself, “Yes, I've spoken to Mr. Deagan on
occasion, but this makes it sound like—” but her
husband rejoins, “Here in Hartford the idea of a White woman
even speaking to a colored man—” Speaking on occasion
to the gardener is nothing to get excited about. But she goes on to
tell her best friend Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson,) “This whole
time the only person I was able to talk to about any of this was
Raymond Deagan. We would just talk, and somehow it made me
feel alive somehow. I think of him, I do, what he's doing,
what he's thinking. Nothing happened between us; I told you
that.” Elle replies, “Cathy, it's none of my business,
but you certainly make it sound as if something had.”
She's wiped out part of it to justify herself.
In this movie it's more back and
forth as in an Allen Wier novel: “Curtis, in the big rocker,
rocked fiercely, hold[ing] a Dr Pepper tight against his lips,
sloshing Dr Pepper into his mouth when he rocked back, then into
the bottom of the bottle when he rocked forward” (74.)
Production Values
“” (2002) was written and directed by Todd Haynes. It stars Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid and Dennis Haysbert. The acting is tops. Moore delivers and Haysbert comes across.
MPA rated it PG–13 for mature thematic
elements, sexual content, brief violence and language. Violence of
fist & rock was tension getting out of hand rather than any
systematic persecution. It had period-authentic speech,
wardrobes, settings, and weltanschauung. The romantic
music by Elmer Bernstein draws one in while the black-on-white
couple repels. Runtime is 1¾ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
Sybil was involved with Baptists,
Raymond repeats church hymns, Frank plays golf with his buddies on
Sunday, and Cathy seeks to volunteer with the NAACP. The Puritan influence is alive and well
who were big on civil marriage and considered homo practice a
capital crime. Politics is referenced in passing. This is a good
snapshot of history, but I doubt it will convert any viewer to a view he
doesn't already hold. It seems to tone down offensive material without
entirely eliminating it. It's a timeless movie worth watching.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for Children: Suitable for children 13+ years with guidance. Special effects: Average special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.
Works Cited
Unless otherwise stated, scripture is quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Drunken Noah scene depicted in a Civil War vintage woodcut, made after a drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (German painter, 1794–1872) from his archive, published in 1877, and more recently by iStock.com/Getty Images. Used under license.
The Book of Jasher. Translated from the Hebrew into English (1840). Photo lithographic reprint of exact edition published by J.H. Parry & Co., Salt Lake City: 1887. Muskogee, OK: Artisan Pub., 1988. Print, Web.
Hodge, Bodie. Tower of Babel: The Cultural History of Our Ancestors. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Pub., 2013. Print.
Ide, Arthur Frederick. Noah & the Ark: The Influence of Sex, Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas: Monument Press, 1992. Print.
Wier, Allen. Blanco. Copyright © 1978 by Allen Wier. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org