Superficially a melodrama that owes more to Mills & Boon than German Expressionism, the Hamburg-born Douglas Sirk’s second film with the pairing of Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson, after 1954’s Magnificent Obsession, has proved remarkably influential, inspiring films as diverse as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven (2002).
Flipping the conventions of the May-September romance by having an older woman fall for a younger man, All That Heaven Allows is a film about social non-conformism that prefigures many of the themes of the 1960s despite its strait-laced appearance. Hudson’s character Ron is not only an arborist at ease with nature, but an avid reader of the philosopher Henry David Thoreau who introduces Wyman’s character Cary to a more culturally and emotionally diverse, even Bohemian, circle.
Subsequent readings of the film have emphasised the queer subtext (at one point, Cary asks Ron if he would like her as a man), the saturated colours and symbolism of the visuals, and the subtle irony at work. The over-riding theme is captured in Ron’s quotation of Shakespeare: “To thine own self be true.”
“Everything you want from a tumultuous weepy is here: hard, breathless kisses; big, brave declarations of violent, undying love; battle-weary, star-crossed lovers who meet obstacles at every turn. But Sirk surpasses melodramatic cliches by securing an exceptional performance from Wyman, whose soft face, as watchful and nervously expectant as a child’s, is captivating throughout, subtly registering every chink of hope and approaching black cloud. This is her, and Sirk’s finest hour.” Jane Graham, The Guardian (2010)
“[W]ith Sirk the style conceals the message. His interiors are wildly over the top, and his exteriors are phony – he wants you to notice the artifice, to see that he’s not using realism but an exaggerated Hollywood studio style.” Roger Ebert, rogerebert.com (1998)
