We’ll stick with Hollywood for now for the 1948 Douglas Sirk flick, ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS. I remember reading about Sirk after I saw Todd Haynes’ FAR FROM HEAVEN about a decade ago (sheesh) and wanting to check him out. So, I’m glad I finally have.
Jane Wyman stars as a middle-aged widow and mother of 2, whose kids are in college and on the verge of moving out of the house. She has a nice gentlemanly suitor (Conrad Nagel) who is a little too boring and old for her, and an annoying group of shallow country club friends.
She starts to open up when she begins to speak with her gardener (Rock Hudson) who is younger than her, and viewed as lower class, due to his profession. This, coupled with the general attitude of the time concerning widows moving on, results in a controversial romance in which her friends and her own children judge her so harshly that the relationship is almost destroyed.
Sirk’s movies were famous for being melodramas that dealt with domestic “women’s issues,” but viewed in retrospect there is of course a lot to be said about how films like this one expose the hypocrisy of the ultra-conformist 1950s and the shackles it placed on people who just wanted to be happy, especially women and minorities.
Watching it today, it’s tempting to say, “What’s the big deal?” but I think that’s the entire point. Things like this should not be a big deal, and yet they are. That’s what makes them injustices. That’s what makes lonely people, desperate people, unhappy people. Shit that shouldn’t be, but is.
The movie is beautifully shot with gorgeous, deep color and fantastic settings that turn suburbia into a grander setting than you might imagine. It combines reality with decadence in a way that filmmakers like Tim Burton would go on later to emulate with such intensity that it borders on parody.
The thing is, if the movie seemed insincere for just a moment, it’d all fall apart. Because it appears that Sirk really knows what he’s doing, it all works. What could be over the top is only over the top in service of Sirk’s point, which is sadly still poignant today.
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