While watching All That Heaven Allows I felt very entertained by some of the elements of melodrama, specifically the exaggerated characters. However, I also think simplifying and exaggerating some of the characters helped give Ron and Cary more depth. For example, all I remember about Ned is that he makes an amazing martini, because it was mentioned almost every time he was on the screen. Similarly, Kay is a stereotypical smart girl- she goes to Princeton and always has some sort of knowledge or answer for whatever is going on, except when she finds out that Cary really loves Ron. Cary’s kids actually reminded me a little bit of the Kens in Barbie and how they have one job (this Ken’s job is martini). However, Ron and Cary are set up differently. At first, Ron seems to only care about trees. It seemed like the only thing he would talk about, until Cary went to see him, and she learned that he had more to him than trees. Cary also seems to live a very simple life, until we see her transformation from a simple widow that fits into her society to a woman with complex feelings and considerations. She starts the film seeing the older man that goes to the country club and pleases her kids, then grows more complex as she falls in love with Ron, a younger man with a less lucrative lifestyle. In doing this, Sirk highlights how different Cary and Ron are, as well as how much Cary changed throughout the movie.

Another thing I thought about was what “all that heaven allows” meant in the context of the movie. It could be a reference to Cary aging and heaven is allowing her to still be alive and dateable, but she doesn’t seem that old and that didn’t seem to make enough sense. It could also be a reference to the fact that her husband had to die for her to find Ron, who seemed to set her free from her societal constraints. Another use of the title could be when Ron fell and he could have died, but didn’t, which is heaven allowing Ron and Cary to be together, again setting Cary free.

One thing that did kind of confuse me was the tone seeming to change at random. The first time I noticed the change from cool to warm tone was when Ron was feeding the reindeer and Cary came over, so I thought it was some representation of finding warmth and comfort in each other, while the town could be quite cold to them. However, the tone seemed to switch a few more times throughout the film and my reasoning didn’t seem to make sense anymore. I don’t know if I was missing something or if it is just because the movie was filmed a long time ago, but the toning did not make much sense to me.