| Review:
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A sort of tabloid cinema presumably peering into the
all surface and no substance pathological lives of the rich
and infamous, Savage Grace manages to be tasteless, titillating
and dull, all at the same time. Not to mention that many
of the true cultural and class details surrounding these
upscale real life scandals, if the filmmakers had bothered
to include them, would have made for a far more bracing
story.***
Based on the novel Savage Grace by Natalie Robins and
Steven M.L. Aronson and directed by Tom Kalin (Swoon), the
film wallows in the sordid, superficial circumstances surrounding
sexual perversion, insanity and violence in the prominent
jet-setting Baekland family during the mid-20th century.
These dark deeds seem to be precipitated by the excruciating
tedium and boredom of the idle rich, with too much money
and time on their hands.***
Julianne Moore is Barbara Daly, a dazzling model who
marries wealthy trust fund baby Brooks Baekland (Stephen
Dillane), and adapts with difficulty to his entourage of
pretentious and purposeless swells. Increasingly alienated
by this insular and asphyxiating social milieu, Barbara
begins deteriorating mentally, and is drawn into an unhealthy,
emotionally dependent bond with their only child, Tony (Eddie
Redmayne).***
No need to figure out where this maternal relationship
is headed, when she announces to the impressionable schoolboy,
'Will you still love me when my hair is gray and my tits
are sagging,' and later at a dinner party orders the child
to recite to the guests from a Marquis de Sade novel. And
Barbara for her part, tends to jump into whatever nearest
car in the vicinity to run off for some hot, anonymous sex
with the motorist stranger, whenever she and the hubby have
a spat.***
And when Tony reaches young adulthood during the permissive
'60s era when 'nothing is forbidden,' Barbara does pot and
drugs with her son when not seducing his homosexual lovers,
and diving into bed with both of them on occasion. Meanwhile,
Dad has run off with his son's former teenage girlfriend.
Eventually extreme decadence segues into collective insanity,
and without a hint of psychological motivation or reflection
around.***
Regrettably, a more fascinating potential story could
have been gleaned from the real facts surrounding this family
saga, and not just the salacious ones. What were the relationships
and frictions of this mixed-class family with their servants
and employees. And Brooks' real life stern and disapproving
father who never figures in the narrative, renowned inventor
Leo Baekland, was actually from exceedingly humble origins,
an immigrant son of a cobbler and maid. Therefore the younger
Baekland and his family would have been considered nouveau
riche, and pariahs among the old money elite they aspired
to join. And senior Baekland's own personal, far more intriguing
story, included his invention of Bakelite that ushered in
the age of plastics, was responsible for radios, telephones
and electrical insulators, and was a discovery eventually
acquired from him by Kodak for the development of modern
photography equipment. A missed dramatic opportunity, indeed.***
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