“Cary, let’s face it: you were ready for a love affair, but not for love.”

‘All That Heaven Allows’, directed by Douglas Sirk in 1955, is an American melodrama set in a small town in New England. Jane Wyman plays Cary Scott, an affluent widow who falls in love with her free-spirited gardener, Ron Kirby, played by Rock Hudson. Her children and socialite friends object to her engagement to Kirby and, under pressure, she breaks it off, only to suffer from loneliness and heartbreak. It’s a film that has touches of Yasujirō Ozu’s ‘Tokyo Story’ about it. The film is as much about the abandonment of Scott by her grown up children as it is about her future with Kirby. In one scene, Scott’s offspring by her a television to keep her occupied and distracted, an infantilising gesture similar to that imposed on Shūkichi and Tomi in Ozu’s movie. There is also a strong theme of socialist back-to-nature about this film. Kirby is influenced by Henry David Thoreau’s ‘Walden’, and Sirk utilised a lush cinematography to match the humanism of the script. This seems to be the key to the film: playing on the conflict between the consumerist middle classes and the self-sufficient but more grounded drop-outs from the rat-race. It’s a film about how happiness can be found, not through money or networking, but rather through escape to a simpler life.

Would I recommend it? Yes – it’s a rich and beautiful film with a powerful political and social message. Watch in a double bill with ‘Tokyo Story’.