One of the best films you're likely to see this year

Far From Heaven

Director: Todd Haynes

Cast: Julianne Moore, Dennis Quaid, Dennis Haysbert, Patricia Clarkson, Viola Davis

Cert: 15.

It wasn't better back then.

In this absolutely perfect film, for which the wonderful Moore has collected one of her Oscar nominations, we return to the 'golden' age of l950s Stateside domesticity, to find it tarnished.

Moore plays the 'perfect' wife of the 'perfect' businessman-husband (Quaid) in a 'perfect' world of middle-class 'perfection'; it is a life of gloss and of all the things which were - are - deemed heavenly. Haynes captures a life in the highly coloured images of the era's films and the ultimate emptiness of it all.

This world of everything in its proper place is suddenly shattered when she discovers her husband's terrible secret, and is further troubled by her growing friendship with a decent black gardener (Haysbert) and her black maid (Davis) which her friends disapprove of; it's just not the done thing.

It is a film that recalls the so-called women's dramas of directors such as Douglas Sirk, dramas that were always deeper and more subtle than they at first appeared, and it is a film of soaring understanding of the vapidness of the lives people often lead. Moore is magnificent, simply magnificent (as is Quaid) in one of the best stories you're likely to see on a screen this year.

Star Rating: 5/5.