Li: Far From Heaven

The color palate of the 1950s reminds me of the beautiful hues of fall. An Oldsmobile Rocket 88 drives by, streaked in the soft pale green. A vinyl-topped Ford Custom Crestliner glows brightly in canary yellow. There goes a teal Chevrolet Skyline followed in short order by a classic pink Cadillac Coupe DeVille. Their drivers are rushing home (perhaps a bit buzzed from after work cocktails) to go and relax at last in lovely parlors that are elegantly adorned with rosewood veneer sideboard cabinets sitting to the side of martini olive sofas, angled hard and stiff. A bright orange Eames LAR armchair isn’t too far away. Each piece and each color is in total harmony, firmly entrenched in its perfect little place.

Cathy Whiitaker (Julianne Moore): Oh Frank, are you alright? What happened?

Frank Whiitaker (Dennis Quaid): Everything’s fine. It was all just a big mix up. The whole thing.

When a siren sounds, it has a tendency to shock momentarily, like a quick jab to the gut. But it passes. The siren fades off in the invisible distance and signifies nothing more than the fiction that occurs on the other side of town, far away from real life.

Cathy: So there were … drinks after work.

Even when things don’t seem to add up, you can look the other way. There are simply too many important and relevant things to attend to. Warnings and red flags are not ingredients of idyllic lives.

Cathy: But really, my life is like any other wife or mother’s. In fact … I don’t think I’ve … ever wanted anything.

Of course, in the land of faultlessness and fiction, warnings and red flags are easily ignored. There remain too many things to attend to in the realm of idyllic lives. A quick look the other way, off the page, pushes everything aside. How easy it is to be forever blinded by the glow that emanates from perfect bliss.

Cathy: But really, my life is like any other wife or mother’s. In fact … I don’t think I’ve … ever wanted anything.

But warnings can lead to cracks. You notice fingerprints, plain as day, on the middle of an otherwise well-polished table. They are caught in the reflection of the late afternoon sun. Maybe the maid is getting lazy.

WORK IN PROGRESS.

Frank: I know it’s a sickness because it makes me feel despicable.

The momentum rolls like thunder. You scramble for cover.

Cathy: I just wish it didn’t have to turn ugly in front of our friends.

Oddly, the spotlight is as traumatic as the truth itself. In a blaze of betrayal, the trophy case of pride crashes into a thousand shards of exploding debris.

Eleanor Fine (Patricia Clarkson): Cathy, I’m your dearest friend in the entire world. You call me day or night. You hear?

Just be very careful where you turn. Sometimes, support is nothing more than poorly pasted wallpaper, bubbling and peeling at the first hint of moisture. Another delicate layer of the fortress turned house of cards.

Raymond: It seems to be the one place where whites and coloreds are in full harmony.

Maybe there really is a place where all the dying colors of fall, if not understood, are celebrated, even cherished for their unique and delicate beauty with no traces of the doom and gloom that accompanies winter’s brisk approach. And if such a celebration can be, it is here then where we will finally be safe. Even in the dark of an eclipse.

Or maybe, we are reduced to a different dream.

Cathy: No one would know us there.

Cathy: Every girl has her secrets.

A place to disappear completely.

-G