All That Heaven Allows

 

Plot:

The film All That Heaven Allows is a standout melodrama that perfectly encapsulates a singular family story around the larger societal pressures of conformity, social class, and women’s role of 1950s suburban America. The film introduces us to the widowed but relatively young and beautiful Cary Scott who lives alone in a wealthy suburb. Her two children, Kay and Ned attend college and visit her in the weekends, and it seems the loneliness is beginning to take it’s toll on Cary, who desires to live outside of her husband’s memory. 

Conformity, Societal Pressures, Gender:

Director Douglas Sirk conveys the social pressures she faces through the snarky and elitist Mona Plash, a member of the country club who attacks Cary for daring to wear a bright red dress to the club, which attracts the eyes of the men at the club. 

Immediately, one of the men, George, asks Cary to dance and then makes crude advances towards her despite the fact he is married. Cary refuses him and he aggressively kisses her. Cary, repulsed by his lack of morality, decides to go home and is escorted by the older bachelor, Harvey. He also attempts to initiate a relationship with Cary but it is clear his sentiments are not romantic but rather motivated by a desire to conform and have a companion. Thus it seems Cary’s only options to escape her loneliness are to be a mistress or get into a marriage of convenience. At this point Cary encounters the handsome gardener Ron Kirby. While taking care of her lawn, Ron shares his ambitions to own a tree farm with Cary and picks up on her desire to live in a carefree environment away from the judgement of others. 

                                   

(Harvey: "Of course I realize I'm not very romantic or impetuous, but then you'd hardly want that sort of thing! I'm sure you feel as I do, that companionship and affection are the important things." How romantic, huh)

Nature as a Symbol of Freedom from Restrictive and Artificial Society:

Ron's Nursery and the Old Mill

Ron asks Cary to come visit his home and and nursery, and after initially saying no, Cary acquiesces. Right away we see the dichotomy Sirk creates by the nature inclined, and free-spirited Ron and the superficial and overly critical people at the country club. Cary accompanies Ron to a party his friends Mick and Alida are hosting. There we again see the contrast between the welcoming and warm hosts and the stiff environment of the country club. There is also a racial element to this distinction. At Mick and Alida’s party, the crowd is diverse. The baker and his family are Italian immigrants and many other guests are also foreign immigrants. They don’t seem to belong to the upper class but are of humble origins. Despite this the food is plentiful and the atmosphere is merry as couples dance to Ron’s piano playing. Thus the countryside and humble townsfolk are romanticized. Even the old mill seems to be taken from a John Constable painting. 

                           

Town Country Club (The sign says it all: For Members Exclusively)

Ending Scene where Cary and Ron finally reunite

Setting is important in creation of the separate spheres between the harsh judgmental suburban society and Ron’s inviting oasis in the countryside. While Cary’s home has cold white and black checkered floors and cool blue lighting in her room specifically over her bed and fireplace, Ron’s home and the mill are filled with warm woods and green nature, creating a sense of happiness and connecting the physical nature with his personality, while the the cool colors in Cary’s home reflect her loneliness and isolation in the big empty house. 

Cary's home (even with excess ornaments, the Christmas tree looks sparse)

Connections to Elsaesser's Article "Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Famlily Melodrama":

"Melodramas often use middle-class American society, its iconography, and the family experience in just this way as the manifest 'material' but 'displace' it into quite different patterns, juxtaposing stereotyped situations in strange configurations, provoking clashes and ruptures which not only open up new associations but also redistribute the emotional energies which suspense and tensions have accumulated in disturbingly different directions." (59-60)In All That Heaven Allows, the typical american suburban family is ruptured by the taboo romantic relationship of a younger working-class man and widowed upper middle class woman, causing a clash between society's expectations and Cary's romantic desires, and this in turn comes between the relationship she has with her children. 

Freudian Influences:The scene that most overtly captures Freudian influence in the film, is the scene where Kay and Cary discuss her impending date with the older Harvey. "He's pleasant, amusing... and he acts his age. If there's a thing I can't stand, it's an old goat. As Freud says, when we reach a certain age, sex becomes incongruous... I think Harvey understands that. "

Kay tells her mother that she doesn't believe in the Egyptian custom of "walling up the widow alive in the funeral chambers of her dead husband, along with all his other possessions. The theory being that she was a possession too, and she was supposed to journey into death with him. And the community saw to it that she did. Of course that doesn't happen anymore. Carey: Doesn't it? Well perhaps not in Egypt."

Also Kay describes Ned's reaction to Carey's low cut red dress as "A typical Oedipus reaction. The son subconsciously resents his mother being attracted to other men."

Link to Freudian scene in All That Heaven Allows

Link to Full Film on Youtube