Reel Hub: All That Heaven Allows

All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Today - 3:30, 5:30, 7:30
Brattle Theater, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge
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We've been thoroughly enjoying the Brattle's "Disturbed Suburbs" series, an interesting mix of movies that look to explore larger social issues ("Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and the paranoia surrounding the Red Scare), and studies of individuals that focus instead on the inner workings of suburban disaffection (The Swimmer and Halloween). Now the series moves back towards social issues in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows, (1959) a love story about a gardener and a wealthy older widow.

Like all of Sirk's movies, All That Heaven Allows falls on the boundary of art and trash. The film is an unabashed melodrama and its characters are dangerously close to caricatures. Sometimes the caricature is so sharp that we don't really mind, but often we're left wanting more. The characterization of the main characters is particularly problematic. For all the chemistry between Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman they never rise beyond their types, and as a result the movie never becomes about individuals; it stays a movie about age and class differences rather than becoming the story of a love.

The film is shot in glorious technicolor, giving it rich, unreal tones that add to the facade of a perfect life. There's nothing subtle or ironic about Sirk's style of filmmaking, yet there's something remarkably appealing about his efforts. At his best, as in Imitation of Life, Sirk's straightforward manner makes you appreciate sentimentality, and it becomes clear why he's risen in esteem so much in the last decades. Just a few years ago, Todd Haynes made the brilliant Far From Heaven as a tribute to Douglas Sirk, showing just how vibrant Sirk's movies and filmmaking remain.