All That Heaven Allows

Year: 1956

Grade: B+

Country: USA

Director: Sirk

Review

not that anyone’s keeping track, but seven of the last ten films i’ve viewed have been released by criterion, and two of the ten were theater pictures. this is only the second sirk film i’ve seen – the other being written on the wind – but i think i can safely say that i like this guy. the glossy look and bright colors belie the truth of the story and the characters being depicted. sirk takes the usual hollywood melodrama and twists it. wyman is a widow, hudson is her gardener. they fall in love, but are forced to hide it for her fear of social ridicule. sirk reveals the dark underbelly of americana by peeling away, layer by layer, the sheen that might cover most pictures of an american town. wyman’s children, along with the rest of the community, hold her hostage to their group morality which ultimately forces her to cancel plans for her marriage. sirk reinforces the themes of isolation through reflected images, fragmentation of the screen and plot. i loved the character of wyman’s daughter – kay. she’s a total egghead who, throughout the film, claims wisdom on deeper motivations of people. she gives insight in the context of freud or oedipus or whomever she is studying at the time. and though she comments that “theory and action should be one,” her character stands in stark contrast to the lowly gardener (hudson) who actually lives his thoreauvian philosophy. indeed, the film compiles many of these contrasts…the contrast between the bourgeois friends of wyman and the down to earth friends of hudson, the wisdom of hudson who is self-taught and the book smarts of kay, the happy saturated colors of the daytime and the stark blue shots at night. it’s a good film all around.