Irony I

I found Douglas Sirk's Written on the Wind (1956) overblown. According to Roger Ebert, many elements of the movie, such casting half out of the closet Rock Hudson as one of the male leads are supposed to be snarky commentary on American society:

...surely Sirk was smiling when he directed it; he's subverting the very lifestyle he celebrates. His use of artificial and contrived effects, colors and plot devices is "a screaming Brechtian essay on the shared impotence of American family and business life," says film critic Dave Kehr, and encompasses deliberate distancing "that draws attention to the artificiality of the film medium, in turn commenting on the hollowness of middle-class American life".

If that's the case, then what about All That Heaven Allows (1955), similarly brimming with "artificial and contrived effects", but where Rock Hudson plays the free spirit, and promotes Thoreau's Walden? Isn't that making fun of people who give up the middle-class life? Oh, I see: when it's the bourgeoisie, he's making fun of it, but he would never ridicule the sainted bohemians. The other thing about both movies is even though Lauren Bacall, Dorothy Malone, and Rock Hudson were all around 30 in the later movie, the two women looked too old. On the other hand, Jane Wyman was about the right age for her role in the earlier movie.