All That Heaven Allows
“All that Heaven Allows” was an
infuriating tale of a clueless woman taken on a journey of meaning that she
could never understand. The story is about a woman named Cary, a typical
1950’ housewife with two children, a nice big house, a hunky gardener and
everything that she could possibly want, except for the missing part of the
equation, a husband. By 1950s standards, this is a strange equation. Cary
husband has died, and Cary is left victim to the perils of a family and home.
She is a character who falls victim to the stereotypes of a woman of the
1950s, and yet this movie is just a magnification of the dependence that
we all have on other people for our identity.
Cary is hopelessly dependent on every person and group
of people in her life. First we see Cary breaking out of her housewife shell,
wearing a red dress when going out with her boyfriend. Cary is at their stuffy
social gathering with all of the elites of her community, her “friends”.
A group of friends who don’t seem like friends at all, but a group of judgmental
strangers. The topic of the night is Cary’s appearance and the quandary that
everyone is mulling over in their heads, which is why is Cary dressing so
sexy when her husband just died? There are so many problems with this question.
Cary, like many women in the 50’s isn’t allowed to dress the way she wants
for fear of social acceptance. She enters the room, and men ogle her. Her
friends talk behind her back, and she is alienated for stepping outside the
socially accepted norm of the group.
Cary identity is malleable, according to this group, Her
social group determines her place in the social world, and once she tries
to step outside that, she gets alienated from the identity that she was given,
and the life that was created around it. Cary gets her identity not only
from her friends, but also her children and her boyfriend. When Cary wears
the red dress, she is penned as something that she is not, just like in everyday
American society, depending upon what you wear, there is a judgement made
about your entire identity. Even with Cary’s group of friends, they can’t
decipher who Cary really is because of how shallow they each are as people.
Despite this, Cary is reliant on them for validation. She cares about what
they think when it is a question of whether or not to stay in a relationship
she obviously wants. Cary sacrifices her happiness to maintain the integrity
of the identity that the group has given her instead of taking on an identity
that she wants.
The men in Cary’s life are able to control her actions
and identity as well. Cary’s boyfriend is a man at least ten years her senior,
not interested in having a physical relationship with her. She has settled
on this man to be her security blanket, a safe house from the elements, a
man she is clearly not interested in. She is again influenced by the ideas
of her peer group that a woman shouldn’t stay long without a male figure
in her life, an aspect of the film that is quite anti-feminist.
The love of Cary’s life is a man who is the complete opposite
of her. The movie makes Cary to be a woman who really wants to let go of
her elitist surroundings and succumb to the pleasures and the truths of the
simple life. Yet, maybe part of Carrie’s reluctance to marry Ron is not because
of the forces in her life that don’t accept that lifestyle, but maybe because
she doesn’t like it herself. Yet, in the end she marries Ron and takes on
a life that is different from what she has known, because she needs a man
to decide for her who she is. It’s a high form of subservience, letting someone
else decide who you are, and that is what is so maddening about this film.
All that Heaven allows is an anti-feminist’s dream, an
utter devaluation of the abilities of woman to make decisions for herself
like the human being that she is. Cary is an extreme example of the stereotypical
woman. She is pushed around and is reliant on a man to tell her what she
should be. The subservience that Cary’s happiness takes under other’s happiness
I maddening. I think, however, that this movie also shines a light on an
important point, that all of us, men and women, base our identities on what
is socially acceptable and preferred. What will gain us the most validation
dictates our course of action.