Romance novel in narrative this transcends its genre with visual depth and perceptive socio-cultural insights.
Comment
10/16/07
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
92
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:26
Fresh:24
Rotten:2
Average Rating:7.6/10
Runtime: 89 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: In ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, Douglas Sirk's haunting suburban morality play, Jane Wyman plays Cary Scott, a wealthy middle-aged widow in love with a younger man considered by those around her to be... [More]
Starring: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel
Director: Douglas Sirk
Reviews for All That Heaven Allows
Top CriticBeneath the stunningly lovely visuals -- all expressionist colours, reflections, and frames-within-frames, used to produce a precise symbolism -- lies a kernel of terrifying despair
02/09/06
Top CriticThe rich visual texture, using glorious Technicolor, and a soaring emotional score lend what is essentially a thin story a kind of epic tension.
10/04/03
Top CriticSirk benefited immeasurably from the fact that the chief subject of his crazy cinema was postwar America.
08/21/09
A classic and beautiful film for those who love romantic stories
10/18/08
One of Sirk's finest films.
10/16/07
Top CriticHudson is handsome and somewhat wooden. Laconic of speech, and imbued with an angel's patience and understanding, it's at times hard to understand his passion for the widow, what with pretty girls just spoilingfor his attention.
10/16/07
Top Critic'Time, if anything, will vindicate Douglas Sirk,' wrote Andrew Sarris in 1968. He was right.
05/26/06
Solid and sensible drama plainly had to give way to outright emotional bulldozing and a paving of easy clichés.
03/25/06
Top CriticWhen Carey (Jane Wyman) first visits the Andersons, friends of Ron (Rock Hudson), Thoreau's Walden is placed on the table. She then reads a passage in which he describes the "mass of men living lives of quiet desperation," a summation of her life.
02/07/06
A masterpiece (1955) by one of the most inventive and recondite directors ever to work in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk.
09/04/04
No review available.
08/20/04
Yet another mystifyingly lionized Sirkian soaper.
01/07/04
Quite involving, overblown emotion and all, particularly due to Wyman's gentle sincerity.
01/02/04
No review available.
10/03/03
No review available.
06/13/03
No review available.
05/30/03
The enjoyability of All That Heaven Allows is hampered by the fact that there's no real plot here.
04/13/03
A potent story for the ages.
03/10/03
No review available.
12/16/02
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