Towards the end of Todd Haynes's Far from Heaven (2002), Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid) comes home unexpectedly early. Sitting in the living room of the immaculate suburban home he shares with his family, he begins to cry, then makes a confession to his wife Cathy (Julianne Moore): ‘I've fallen in love with someone, who wants to be with me.’ The ‘someone’ is a handsome blond man. ‘I tried so hard to make it go away,’ he stammers to Cathy, referring to his homosexuality. The audience is not surprised – they earlier witnessed Frank's cruising and seduction of the other chap – but Cathy seems shellshocked, the camera slowly dollying towards her as she stands static, numb, her face immobile. After a pause, she says, softly, ‘I assume, then, you'll be wanting a divorce.’ Let me begin this book with a confession of my own, which may leave you shell-shocked: the first time I watched Far from Heaven I thought it was, well, far from heavenly. This came as a surprise to me, as I am a committed fan of Haynes and a devotee of the career of Julianne Moore, and adore the 1950s Douglas Sirk melodramas to which the film pays sustained homage. But the film left me cold, numb, and so I tried hard to make it go away, divorce myself from it.