We started off the week with a Douglas Sirk melodrama and so it's a perfect cap to conclude with a tribute to Sirk, this 2002 film made by Todd Haynes as direct homage to Sirk's canon, and All That Heaven Allows in particular. This exquisite drama was made in the style of a 1950's film, right down to the way it was shot, written and acted by the principle players, yet it went one step further in dealing with things under the surface beyond what Sirk could have dared to (although he undoubtedly would have had his films been made just a number of years later). Julianne Moore is a lonely housewife who once again falls in love with her gardener, but this time he happens to be an African-American man played by Dennis Haysbert, and her husband neglects her not due to his work, but because he's a gay man suffering the stifling effects of the closet. It's a gorgeous, movingly rendered film for which Moore should have won her Best Actress Oscar, and not for last year's Still Alice. I still think to this day it's her best performance.
Trailer:
