Fortunes change with the seasons in this 2002 exploration of social consequences set in 1950s Hartford, Connecticut.

Kathy Whittaker, played by Julianne Moore, achieves peak surburbia just as her husband Frank (Dennis Quaid) begins having gay dalliances and Raymond, a new gardener, awakens Kathy’s need for romantic connection. That Raymond, played by Dennis Haysbert, is Black, allows Kathy to experience an instructive dose of otherness on her visit with him to the Black parts of town. This translates to very real social shunning once her bigoted peers learn of her relationship, and Kathy’s standing is threatened on nearly all sides. Haynes serves up this compelling parable in the unblemished jewel-tones and maudlin violins of mid-century melodrama. With dialogue as stiff as Frank’s starched collars juxtaposed with unexpectedly naturalistic performances, more than a few scenes combust to devastating effect within the button-down milieu.

Dave delights in the throw-back nod to Douglas Sirk and the genre of the ‘women’s picture,’ and in the uncanny blend of cliches and earnest heartbreak. Jeremy questions the narrative goals at work in the movie, musing on the resistance the film offers to any easy moral judgments. Did Kathy change, or was she a fish-out-of-water the whole time? Is the audience–or even the whole film–complicit in a white lady pity-party? And does anyone who lives in a split-level house still wear a tux to their own holiday party?