CULT indie director Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine) re-creates the Technicolor splendour of Fifties melodramas, notably the intense colours and style of Douglas Sirk, with this award-laden character study.
Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid) and his wife Cathy (Julianne Moore) are the toast of 1957 Hartford, Connecticut: hugely successful and deliriously in love, with two beautiful children.
However, dark secrets bubble beneath the surface of the Whitakers' seemingly perfect life.
Frank struggles to control his homosexual urges and finds himself drawn into an illicit affair with an attractive blond youth. He agrees to go with Cathy to seek counsel from their local GP, hoping for some miracle cure to his 'illness'.
Meanwhile, Cathy's friendship with black gardener Raymond (Dennis Haysbert) sets tongues wagging in the staunchly conservative and prejudiced community. Even her best friend Eleanor (Patricia Clarkson), who likes to believe herself something of a sophisticate, turns against Cathy for fraternising with people from another culture.
Determined to protect her husband and beloved children from shame, and to play the dutiful wife, Cathy is compelled to make the ultimate sacrifice. Far From Heaven is a deeply affecting portrait of a nuclear family coming apart at the seams.
Moore delivers the finest performance you are likely to see all year, one which should earn her Best Actress at this year's Oscars. All of Cathy's anguish is etched across her face as she strives tirelessly to maintain the facade of the happy family, even if that means burying her own feelings and desires.
Quaid is equally compelling as a husband full of self-loathing and confusion about his sexuality.
Haysbert and Clarkson offer scintillating support as two friends, on opposite sides of the racial divide, who gradually pull Cathy in different directions.
Haynes' evocation of the era is utterly gorgeous, right down to the colours and textures of fabrics and the formal politeness of language.
As Cathy might say herself, Far From Heaven is utterly 'dreamy'
Rating 10/10
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