Set in 1957 Hartford, Connecticut, 'Far From Heaven' follows Cathy Whitaker, a picture-perfect housewife whose idealized life begins to unravel when she discovers her husband Frank is struggling with his homosexuality. As Frank pursues his true identity, Cathy forms a tender friendship with her Black gardener Raymond Deagan, scandalizing their rigidly conformist community. Director Todd Haynes masterfully pays homage to Douglas Sirk's classic melodramas while exploring race, sexuality, and the suffocating constraints of 1950s American society.
Todd Haynes films Sirk's 1950s Hartford suburb in widescreen Technicolor. The film's beauty is the closet; the suburb is the camera angle nobody could escape.