The brusque manner in which Naomi (Barbara Stanwyck) delivers the opening voice-over of All I Desire may be enough to cue Sirk afficianados into her nature and explain why she deserted her husband and three children in favor of following her dream to be a succesful stage performer many years prior.  It carries the weight of confidence and world-weariness as she informs us of her current position in life - somewhere near the bottom of the barrel in the world of theater, but not quite rock bottom.  We first see her reading a letter - a request from her youngest daughter, Lily, to return home to see her perform in the senior play - which she laughs off, but allows her friend to continue reading it to her.  Something in the directness of Lily's approach strikes her and she quickly, almost instinctively, decides to meet the request.  Many of Sirk's melodrama's focus on middle class women suffering to escape the claustrophic atmosphere of suburban family life and the irony of All I Desire is that Naomi is slowly working her way back in.

Upon her return to the town she escaped years ago, we learn of her affair with Dutch and how the subsequent scandal in the town led to her seemingly erratic departure.  Her presence is met with extremely mixed reactions - her oldest daughter, Joyce, is bitter and standoffish; Lily, who has idolized her from afar, continues to model her life after her in hope of escaping the small town she has begun to loathe; Henry, her ex-husband, instantly falls in love with her again, but is overwhelmed with anger for her years of desertion; and, of course, the small town itself, Riverdale, is overcome by her return, waiting patiently for her next misstep so they can send her packing once again.  Early on Sirk sets up the theme of voyeurism, framing characters above, below, or around the corner from one another, leering and observing from afar, sometimes earnestly, but more often in judgement.  Most of the townspeople have no individual characteristics, only an obsessive need to know everything that goes on so they may approve or disapprove of it according to their own moral agenda.

Sirk's compositions also stress his characters emotional alienation and their psychological trappings due to their environment.  At a point in the film when Naomi and Henry are in the process of reconnecting, there is an exterior shot placing Henry in a window working diligently, Naomi standing in thought through the next window and the shadows of Joyce and her fiance embracing on the wall outside.  Sirk has often used suburban architecture as a means of expressing its innate oppressiveness, but perhaps no single shot has so beautifully and effectively combined this with the characters internal conflict and the satirical observation that the place that offers them safety and security creates impenetrable boundaries between their desires and possible reality.  While All I Desire's reverse progression of the Sirkian dilemma allows his heroine to find solace and comfort in the end, the fact that she willingly returns to the environment that stifled her in the past may be the most ironic statement on the disturbing allure of 50s suburbia that he made.  As she enters the home with Henry in the films final shot, she is not a free woman who has finally realized the gravity of her past transgressions and closer to an ex-convict who is unable to succeed in the world and finds comfort in the safety and routine that prison offers.  The more I think about it, the more I realize it might just be the most depressing happy ending I've seen.