far from heaven have be explain a a woman film and and a surefire tear jerker and but in fact it intend for the kind of woman who would cry at the sight of a washing machine that wobble a bit during it spin cycle . todd haynes have lovingly perfect the surface of this film with the skill of a master mortician . however and beneath it perfect surface and it equally dead . all of haynes energy have go towards recreate the detail and trapping of a past era of ( let face it ) relatively minor film making and and there no energy leave to imbue the character with power and believability or any trace of interior life . therefore and kathleen can utter ridiculous line some ice please after she just be belt by her husband and and without lose her paste on smile for a second and can make chirpy little joke about her husband disgustingly ugly drunken behavior at the party that she have spend most of the film ( and perhaps most of her life ) planning . as game a moore acting be and her character be like a windup doll . quaid part be even bad . although i like him a an actor and he have no clue how to portray the inner conflict of a gay man trap in a suburban marriage and trap in the 1950 . for someone who feel despicable and he somehow have no difficulty ogle a cute blond kid in full public view in front of both his own wife and the kid parent . and though he already be catch by both the police and his wife in flagrante delicto and he have no problem get it on with the blond boy in his hotel room while his wife read cosmo by the poolside ( we do not see this happen and but it clearly imply ) . this be simply ridiculous . dennis haysbert character be force ( by the script ) into similarly disingenuous behavior . be expect to believe that he a miro scholar or botanist or mba and man about about town and yet he somehow think he could bring a whiter than white upper class woman into a negro blue bar and the patron would be really friendly . and he surprise when his fellow black shower him with the same one dimensional hatred that all of kathleen friend shower upon her . haynes seem to view the 50 a if they occur 1000 year ago while the character seem not so much a from a different time a from a different specie . the result represent a potential story of tremendous personal conflict and suffering end up a curiously uninvolving pastiche and although one in amaze living technicolor . this be perhaps the only film ever make in which the leaf be more alive than the character .