Todd Haynes Film 'Far from Heaven'

By Bob Mondello

Published November 7, 2002 at 9:00 PM PST

The new Todd Haynes film Far from Heaven stars Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, and Dennis Haysbert. It recreates the look and feel of a 1950s Hollywood melodrama. But NPR Film Critic Bob Mondello says that although the director was paying direct homage to films such as Imitation of Life and All That Heaven Allows he's added enough to the mix to make it feel startlingly original.

Bob Mondello

Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.

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