‘Heaven’ transcends melodrama Moore, Quaid shine in deep, complex film

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In theaters

FAR FROM HEAVEN, written and directed by Todd Haynes, 107 minutes, rated PG-13. Starts tonight, Movie City 8, Bangor.

The new Todd Haynes movie, “Far from Heaven,” is set during the 1950s, a period when director Douglas Sirk flourished with such memorable melodramas as “All That Heaven Allows,” “Written on the Wind,” “Magnificent Obsession” and “Imitation of Life.” Those movies aimed squarely at women were designed – let’s face it – to rip out their hearts with wrenching sentiment and despair.

Haynes’ film is an across-the-board homage of those films, a glossy, Technicolor tear-jerker for those who need to believe that the white picket fence, the neat yard, the smart house, the lovely wife, the handsome husband and the two adorable children are sometimes just set pieces shielding a mother lode of dysfunction.

Embracing that idea, Haynes runs with it and hits it out of the park, delivering a film in which the picket fence is chipped, the wife falls for the black gardener, the husband is drowning his homosexuality in booze, and the two children – well, their lives are about to be shattered to bits.

In the movie, Julianne Moore is Cathy Whitaker, an impossibly sweet, self-sacrificing society maven whose surface life is a thing of dreams.

Her husband, Frank (Dennis Quaid), is a top sales executive at a Connecticut television manufacturer called Magnatech. Both are attractive and enjoy lofty positions in their community, and they’re upper-middle-class successful, so much so that some call them Mr. and Mrs. Magnatech.

Yet all isn’t what it seems with the Whitakers – how could it be when the picture they project is so perfect and unattainable? Indeed, beneath the Whitakers’ colorful surface is a sexless relationship, too many martinis at too many swanky parties gone sour, an embarrassing brush with the law, and an underlying tension whose mystery reveals itself when Cathy catches Frank making out with another man in his office.

Distraught, yet unable to turn to any of her loose-lipped society friends for help or advice, Cathy finds herself seeking solace from her black gardener, Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert). It’s a friendship that grows into something just this side of love, sending her racist, repressed community into a tailspin, fueling the gossip mills and pushing Cathy into a downfall.

What’s remarkable about “Far from Heaven” is that in spite of being a close study of Sirk’s films, it transcends mere emulation, worship and archetype to stand on its own as a movie whose characters are deeper and more complex than the stereotypes they initially appear to be-just as in Sirk’s films.

Throughout, it’s clear that Haynes set out to make the movie Sirk himself could never have made, one that deals directly with themes of race, sexuality and gender roles without the constraints of the era to limit his telling of the story.

With Moore outstanding in an Academy Award-worthy performance, Haynes nailing what’s easily one of the best films of the year, and a score by Elmer Bernstein that soars on a cloud of horns and strings, “Far from Heaven” isn’t just a movie for Sirk fans. It’s a movie for those who love movies.

Grade: A

On video and DVD

BLOOD WORK, directed by Clint Eastwood, written by Brian Helgeland, 115 minutes, rated R.

Clint Eastwood’s “Blood Work,” from a script Brian Helgeland based on Michael Connelly’s best-selling novel, stars Eastwood as Terry McCaleb, an FBI profiler who drops from a heart attack in the opening chase scene and then, two years later, undergoes a heart transplant.

This isn’t exactly the Magnum-wielding, butt-kicking Dirty Harry we remember from the 1970s – and Eastwood, at age 72, seems liberated by it.

Living on a boat in an L.A. marina, Terry is recuperating under the advisement of his doctor, Bonnie Fox (Anjelica Huston), when Graciella Rivers (Wanda De Jesus) enters his life with a compelling reason of why he should come out of retirement: The heart beating in his chest belonged to Graciella’s sister, who was murdered by a serial killer in a convenience-store robbery.

Would Terry be willing to help her find the murderer? Of course he would – and before you can say, “the plot just flatlined,” Terry is tracking down a serial killer, Graciella is licking the scar on Terry’s chest, and Terry is making love to her with the considerable help of her sister’s heart, a bizarre twist that redefines what it means to be incestuous.

What’s great about “Blood Work” isn’t what it becomes – a preposterous television movie made for the big screen – but its small touches, such as the scene in which Terry quietly shares a box of donuts with two detectives (Paul Rodriguez and Dylan Walsh), the way the film suggests Terry once had a fling with the cop (Tina Lifford) who comes to help him in the investigation, and the moment Terry raises a shotgun to raise hell on a city street.

Eastwood doesn’t deny his audience the pleasure of watching him lock and load, but in this uneven movie, he wisely also doesn’t try to convince us that it’s as easy as it used to be.

Grade: B-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Tuesdays and Thursdays on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com

The Video-DVD Corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores, starting alphabetically with the most current releases.

The Adventures of Pluto Nash ? F

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever ? F

Blood Work ? B-

Trapped ? C-

Baran ? A-

Minority Report ? A-

Unfaithful ? B-

Halloween: Resurrection ? F

K-19: The Widowmaker ? C+

Stuart Little 2 ? A-

Austin Powers in Goldmember ? B-

Lilo & Stitch ? B+

Ice Age ? B

Lovely and Amazing ? A

Men in Black II ? C-

Sunset Boulevard (DVD) ? A+

Reign of Fire ? C+

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron ? B+

Thirteen Conversations About One Thing ? A

Bad Company ? D

The Importance of Being Earnest ? B-

Star Wars: Attack of the Clones ? C+

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys ? B-

The Powerpuff Girls Movie ? B

Pumpkin ? C+

The Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood ? B+

Eight Legged Freaks ? B

Spider-Man ? A-

Sum of All Fears ? D

E.T.: 20th Anniversary Edition ? A

Mr. Deeds ? D

Insomnia ? A

Life or Something Like It ? B-

Scooby-Doo ? C-

Windtalkers ? C-

Big Trouble ? D

Enough ? C-

Jason X ? Bomb

The Scorpion King ? B

Enigma ? C

Monsoon Wedding ? A-

Murder by Numbers ? C

Death to Smoochy ? B+

40 Days and 40 Nights ? C-

Monsters, Inc. ? A-

Panic Room ? B

Changing Lanes ? B

Count of Monte Cristo ? B+

Frailty ? C-

Blade II: B+

High Crimes ? C

Queen of the Damned ? C-

Iris ? B

Joe Somebody ? D

The Rookie ?A-

The Sweetest Thing ? D+

We Were Soldiers ?B+

Birthday Girl ? B

The Business of Strangers ? B

Clockstoppers ? C

In the Bedroom ? A

The New Guy ? D

Showtime ? C+

Deuces Wild ? D-

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring ? B+

Collateral Damage ? D

Dragonfly ? D

Resident Evil?C-

Crossroads ? C-

Kung Pow: Enter the Fist: B-

The Time Machine ? D-

Amelie ? A

John Q. ? C-

Pinero ? B

Charlotte Gray ? B+

Hart’s War ? B

The Royal Tenenbaums ? B+

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius ? B+

Shallow Hal ? C

A Beautiful Mind ? B

Gosford Park ? B+

I Am Sam ? C

The Majestic ? D-

Max Keeble’s Big Move ? B