Autumn is my favorite time of year. I love the beautiful foliage, the freshness of the air and the smell of burning leaves in the distance.
It takes me back to the joys of building leaf forts in my childhood yard, high school football games, and outdoor parties filled with friends and bad decisions.
Autumn also reminds me of two memorable films – one is so bad… well, it’s still just bad. The other is a modern masterpiece.
As is typical for curmudgeons, I’ll start with the bad.
If there’s a worse movie than Autumn in New York, I haven’t seen it. This 2000 release stars several actors who are very good in other areas. The question arises: did they read this script before signing the contract?
Handsome restaurateur Richard Gere quickly falls in love with the much younger Winona Ryder, only to discover that she is the daughter of a former lover, now deceased. But wait! It is later revealed that he also slept with Winona’s grandmother (played by Elaine Stritch) years ago… And somewhere he has a daughter (not the result of any affairs of his over three generations) whom he ignored for most of her life.
Winona then contracts film disease, for which there is no cure.
I think her disease is actually given a name in this particular movie (neuroblastoma?), but it’s the same thing that killed Ali MacGraw in Love Story and countless other unnecessary female characters in boys’ and men’s coming-of-age stories. Fatal, but you look great until you die.
Will Gere’s character grow after this short but life-changing romance? Oh, are you sure?
Trust me, it’s even worse than it seems.
There’s also Far From Heaven (2002), directed by Todd Haynes, one of the best American films of the 21st century.
Haynes reportedly conceived the film, at least in part, as an homage to Douglas Sirk’s 1950s melodramas such as Magnificent Obsession, in which beautiful people suffer in an idyllic setting.
It’s a good starting point: Haynes and cinematographer Edward Lachman capture the incredibly beautiful setting of 1950s Connecticut, in which New York advertising executive Frank Whitaker (Dennis Quaid), his wife Kathy (Julianne Moore) and their two children live the good life. In autumn, when many of the most memorable scenes take place, the beauty of the surrounding area will take your breath away.
Naturally, problems are hidden behind the apparent perfection of this beautiful couple.
Let’s start with the fact that Frank is gay and drinks too much. And Katie begins to develop very deep feelings for their gardener, Raymond Deegan (Dennis Haysbert), a black man who offers her the tenderness and understanding that her husband cannot give.
In lesser hands this could have been a bad film too. But at the heart of it all is Julianne Moore’s truly outstanding performance and an honest, if sometimes deliberately exaggerated, look at racism and homophobia in the 50s.
Patricia Clarkson is also great as Katie’s best friend, who is terribly supportive when she learns that Frank is being cruel… but terribly cold-blooded when he learns of Katie’s feelings for Raymond. Suburban liberalism had its limits.
Julianne Moore received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Far From Heaven, although Quaid and Haysbert’s fine performances went unnoticed. There’s even a small but strong role from Viola Davis, an established stage actress but not yet a movie star, as the family maid.
I highly recommend Far From Heaven for fall viewing. And if you need a break from the genuine grief it causes, rent anything else in the world other than Autumn in New York.