Haynes’ homage to Douglas Sirk’s style of social critique by way of melodrama masterfully tells the story of a well-to-do suburban Connecticut couple in the 1950s, straitjacketed by convention, desperate to live the lives they really want. Dennis Quaid gives one of the best performances of his career as a closeted, alcoholic business exec, reduced to furtive couplings on the down low; his wife, Julianne Moore, is strongly attracted to their enterprising and erudite black gardener, Dennis Haysbert, but is unsure how to relate to him as a person, let alone as a woman to a man. Haynes’ most celebrated film won dozens of festival and end-of-year critics awards. –AFI
Filmmaker Todd Haynes is known for making provocative films that subvert narrative structure and resound with transgressive, complex eroticism. The content of his work has made Haynes the subject of both acclaim and controversy, a whipping boy for debates about NEA funding and a figurehead in the new queer cinema. Although he doesn’t characterize himself as a gay filmmaker who makes exclusively gay films, he has pointed out in interviews that to do this would be taking only the content instead of the form of his films into consideration; Haynes’ name has become synonymous with that cinematic movement and its work to both expose and redefine the contours of queer culture in America and beyond. Born January 2, 1961, in Los Angeles, Haynes grew up in nearby Encino. He developed an interest in film at a young age, and while still a high school student, he produced his first film, a short about contemporary teenage life entitled The Suicide (1978). Haynes went on to study at Brown University… read more
Haynes uses color masterfully here. Color functions as both a source of attraction as well as a barrier to the fulfillment of desire. The preponderance of green, red, and purple throughout the film go beyond mere aesthetics; they emphasize the theme of color's beguiling effect upon our senses. We are obsessed with categorizing, conceptualizing, and castigating by color, and yet these evaluations on the basis of color
The melodrama is here, present, but it's very true. The production design is incredible. I loved the performances; they are real but capture the aestetics of an homage. The music is very good and similar to the genre. Of everything, the editing is probably the weakest. It's the one element I feel did not manage to capture the style of the 50s melodrama.
One of the more intriguing projects we have to look forward to this year is Todd Haynes's Mildred Pierce, a five-part miniseries airing on

While never being one of the most recognised, Todd Haynes may be Hollywood’s most stylistically skilled… read review
Far From Heaven is the biggest cinematic disappointment I’ve had in quite a while. I expected nothing less than a masterpiece, with the Film under the direction of a genius, leading lady Julianne Moore… read review
Borrowing the artificial-looking scenery and the sweetened dramatization of a typical ’sirkian’ melodrama from six decades ago, Haynes at once honors the German master by probing the thematic scope… read review
Creating a film that looks like a 50’s melodrama isn’t too difficult (Though it requires a very talented crew). But creating one that is more than just camp value is a bit more difficult. But Todd… read review