Seasonal Affective Cinema is a quarterly film club screening films that aesthetically and thematically reflect the changing of the seasons. Join us for a sumptuous induction into autumn with a screening of Todd Haynes’ homage to Hollywood melodrama, Far From Heaven.
Julianne Moore plays Cathy Whitaker, a 1950s housewife with the “perfect” life: she has a successful husband (Dennis Quaid), lives in a beautiful suburban home, and is the pinnacle of her New England social scene. But Cathy’s carefully constructed world is shattered when her husband’s secret desires are exposed and she finds herself falling for her gardener, Raymond (Dennis Haysbert). Confronted by prejudice, gossip, and rigid social codes, Cathy has to choose between the comfort of conformity and the risk of desire.
Haynes (Carol, Safe) crafts a stunning homage to the lush melodramas of Douglas Sirk, filling the film with saturated autumnal hues, heightened emotions, and a gorgeously stylised production design. But beneath the beauty is a portrait of repression, longing, and change. Amongst the falling leaves, Cathy’s world shifts too — turning seasonal imagery into a poignant metaphor for personal transformation.
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