343 - All That Heaven Allows, United States, 1955. Dir. Douglas Sirk.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. - Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).
Cary Scott is a society woman. She is member of the country club. She has a gardener. Her son makes a great martini. Her daughter attends lectures for pleasure.
She has a friend named Sara Warren. And an enemy named Mona Plash. Mona is the woman at the club who talks about everyone. She exhales gossip.
Cary is widowed. Her husband was a local legend. His trophy sits upon the mantle. Their friend Harvey remembers the night he filled it with champagne and made them all drink from it.
Harvey is interested in Cary. Club member Howard is after her. Two men are vying for her at once. Mona remarks that Cary is wearing red so soon after the funeral. At least she will be noticed.
And then there is the gardener.
Cary offers him coffee. And a roll. Two rolls. They talk.
Ron Kirby runs a nursery. His father ran it before him. He took over when his father died. He went to agricultural school. He is getting into tree farming.
White fir. Douglas fir. Silver-tipped spruce. Koelreuturia. The Golden Rain Tree.
Would you like to see them?
Ron Kirby takes Cary Scott to see his place. And the silver-tipped spruces.
He lives in a room that opens into the greenhouse.
An old grist mill stands nearby. He shows it to her. She imagines what it would be like if it were fixed up. Not as a mill but as a home.
Then they realize it.
She begins to go there. She meets his friends. Mick and Alida Anderson.
Ron Kirby has never read Walden. He just lives it. Mick, however, reads it like a Bible. They practice a lifestyle of simplicity and fellowship with nature.
Cary is now in love. Both with Ron and with his lifestyle. But what will her society friends say?
She is about to find out.
You can't be serious. Your gardener?
Cary's love and her principles are tested. It seems no one approves. Her friend Sara supports her because she is her friend. But Cary has put herself in a position to be judged and ostracized by all in her circle. And to isolate her own children.
She has reached a fork in the road. She is going to have to choose.
All That Heaven Allows follows in the vein of its predecessor, Magnificent Obsession (1954). It brings back the three leads, Rock Hudson, Jane Wyman, and Agnes Moorehead.
It also brings back the melodrama, but interestingly, the melodramatic nature of the film derives from the circumstances of the plot more than by any emotional indulgences of the actors. Rather than playing it over the top, they stand calmly and speak naturally. They are simply working with emotional material in saturated colors underscored by lavish music.
What will Cary do?
Everything seems to have fallen apart.
Alida advises her.
It still isn't too late, if he loves you.
You don't know Mother as we know her. She is really much more conventional than you seem to think she is. She has the innate desire for group approval, which most women have.
What's wrong with money?
I agree. You have to have it to have contempt for it.
Haven't I seen you somewhere before?
Well, Mrs. Humphrey, probably in your garden. I've been pruning your trees for the past three years.
Look, Mick. I told her that I love her. I asked her to marry me. I can't force her. She has to make up her own mind.
She doesn't want to make up her own mind. No girl does. She wants you to make it up for her.
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