Jane Wyman stars a wealthy widow in a conservative town and Rock Hudson stars as her much younger gardener who falls in love with her. As the relationship progresses she faces a nasty town gossip, disapproval from the friends at the club and finally the non acceptance by her children.Quite insightful movie with some clear powerful messages for it's time. When a movie is good it doesn't feel dated even though the fact of dating a younger man nowadays is slightly less taboo the sense of ostracism for having a different relationship is still relevant today be it due to race gender or religion.Liked the part where after making the sacrifice for her kids it turned out the kids didn't really care later on and she realizes she didn't have to sacrifice after all.The cinematography is pretty.Worth a watch.

For those of us who recall suburbia before city people began repopulating it then cities became repopulated with people just relocating from low density rural areas this is a nostalgic memory of what we once lived through. This is life as we no longer live it but have fond memories of the good not the bad parts. Jane Wyman lives in a pampered world of luxury in total widowhood boredom to be awakened by Rock Hudson in fact eight years her junior. He plays a working fella young enough to be her third child more in fact interested in her than are her distant children in fact going through their own angst at social changes they seem unprepared to deal with. A brilliantly photographed and edited memory of what our lives were like when luxury and pampering could still replace personal meaning and satisfaction.

The question here is why can't it be a simple thing, love? It should be; but she is an upper-class widow and he's too young and her own gardener so what will people say. We have here a crushing indictment of the hypocrisy of people, the small-minded dead-ends of social life where our self has to extend over; we can't just be locked in our house falling in love, it has to be aired in the open, nurtured in the approval. So it's no small question the film poses; it's all too easy to condemn the fragile woman who's deathly afraid of opinion, easier said than overcome. But he's too pure; at one point a deer is seen eating out of his hand! The falling in love is never quite fleshed, believable, it just happens so we can skip to the dilemmas about love so the whole foundation is shaky. Her anxiety is palpable, but only her side of the hurt. It's melodrama dished straight, too creamy and simple for me, holding only a habitual power. Scenes roll one into the other like someone stirring his martini. What remains is the translucent gloss and color, the halos of anticipation around the faces, the glassdoors and windows of aired emotion.But you can sense the rejection of complacent formality that is to come. A TV is already at this point seen as a mirror of quashed dreams; Walden is picked up and quoted.

A film of noble aims and perfect execution. Jane Wyman is beautiful profound, and perfect, in her portrayal of a lonely widow dealing with the loss of a husband, and the emergence of a new love. Although Rock Hudson is limited, he conveys the image of a wild and free rebel. Determined to go his own way no matter what society says. An opinion which would gain more relevance in the 60's and early 70's before becoming a fashion statement and ..alas.. finally irrelevant. "All that Heaven Allows" is way ahead of its time. Perhaps it should take a German like Douglas Sirk to reflect the underlying narrow thinking that is the heart of the 1950's mind set and dominated the culture of the 50's and continues to dominate our culture today,.It's not so much a critique of conservative small town values as it is a confrontation of the conformity that continues to exist today in 2012.