Haysbert is equally powerful in a performance that goes in the opposite direction. On the surface, Raymond is all reticence, decency and good manners -- liberal Hollywood's dream of the noble, upwardly mobile Negro. But Haysbert and Haynes conspire to subvert this stereotype, too. Along with Viola Davis, who plays Cathy's housekeeper, they pay homage to Sirk's grandest, most radical picture, Imitation of Life, in which Juanita Moore took the cinema archetype of the selfless black servant and turned her into a human being.
And this, in effect, is what Far From Heaven accomplishes for all of its characters. It rediscovers the aching, desiring humanity in a genre -- and a period -- too often subjected to easy parody or ironic appropriation. In a word, it's divine.
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