Name: Too Much: Far From Heaven
Start: 2025-10-04T18:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-10-04T20:00:00+01:00
Location: Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast

Todd Haynes’ homage to Douglas Sirk’s (All That Heaven Allows) style of social critique by way of melodrama, masterfully tells the story of a well-to-do suburban couple in 1950s America, straitjacketed by convention.
Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid perform the epitome of suburban perfection as Cathy and Frank Whittaker, a wealthy couple whose placid life of ease comes under threat as the transgressive nature of romantic yearning prompts both Frank’s sexual awakening and Cathy’s growing fondness for their gardener, a Black man named Raymond (Dennis Haysbert).
Paying homage to the glorious era of Technicolor, Haynes synthesises a Sirkian palette in this retelling to daring effect, and though the film’s hues verge on lurid, the schema never falls prey to camp or pastiche, but remains steadfast in its sincerity and wrenching portrayal of forbidden love.
The 2.45pm screening on Sun 5 Oct will be introduced by Dr. Sian Barber, Reader in Film, Film Studies at Queen's University, Belfast.
Too Much: Melodrama on film is a UK-wide season, supported by BFI National Lottery funding, celebrating the vivid visual language, heightened dramatics and emotional pathos at the heart of film melodrama.