Savage Grace (Tom Kalin, 2008)

[flyonthewall2983]

Trailer. Wow.

[Barmy]

From IMDB:

The sex scene was horrible. Oh God that was filthy. The worst part is my mum resembles Julianne Moore.

[flyonthewall2983]

From IMDB:

The worst part is my mum resembles Julianne Moore.

Well, there you go. Not exactly an objective opinion.

[Barmy]

I see that Belén Rueda (Orphanage), the most rotten incompetent godawful human being that ever lived, is in this.

The trailer looked good except that trite last 10 seconds that tried to make it look like an action/horror flick.

[domino harvey]

I like how the trailer turns into "SHE'S A MONSTER!" so that any middle-class audiences who accidentally see this trailer can go, "Well thank goodness, I didn't want to support incest!"

[Lino]

I'm blown away! That trailer is very effective and overjoyed to see Moore returning to difficult roles, a thing she's especially gifted for. And the music! God! Just beautiful! Gotta catch this one in the theatre for more barmy audience reactions now!

Welcome back, Tom Kalin!

[s.j. bagley]

i'm excited for this.

[David Ehrenstein]

Very excited about this. Tom Kalin has been so dedicated to doing this project in ways few can imagine.

Rather important to read the book -- which is an oral histroy a la Edie.

Full disclosure: I met Tony once or twice circa 1967 as his circle intersected with one I was in in New York. All spoiled rich neurotic gay boys are alike.

Except for the borderline-psychotic ones.

[margot]

Saw it today at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The audience was laughing at parts that were not funny, especially the sex scene.

Anyone know what this movie is rated? I can't imagine the MPAA not having a problem with Julian Moores hands moving in the masturbation scene.

[David Ehrenstein]

Why the laughter? Fear?

[Lino]

People always laugh in uncomfortable scenes in order to make them less insufferable. I've noticed this happen several times and in the most unusual circumstances. Which doesn't make it less sad.

[David Ehrenstein]

Saw it last night and quite liked it. Very different from what I was expecting -- and I've been expecting quite a lot as I knew several people on the fringes of the Bakeland circle, and I love Swoon. As might be expected Julianne Moore is teriffic. But so is Eddie Redmayne in the far more difficult role of Tony.

This film is going to upset a lot of people. Many will just dismiss it out of hand as carriage trade John Waters minus the jokes. But it has a lot to say about a world that is truly gone with the wind.

[Lino]

Already available on DVD in Spain as a 2xDVD edition.

[Lino]

Already available on DVD in Spain as a 2xDVD edition.

And I went ahead and got it.

Strangely fascinating film. Already watched it twice. Julianne Moore proves once again that she is the bravest actress in the business today. What a character she is able to construct since the very first frames. And I always get a particular kick out of watching redheaded people on the screen. She and Eddie Redmayne make the perfect mother and son. The cinematography really helps too, with wonderful pastel colors that really complement Moore's complexion (now I sound like some arty make-up artist talking but, what the heck, I'm in the mood today).

If you're wondering if Kalin has gone mainstream, don't fret: the arthouse style of editing (as in, not traditional) is still there and more importantly, his desire to portray homosexuals as outlaws (albeit educated ones but in the good, old tradition of some of the most important figures of the last century) and not sensitive, conformist individuals (think back to his first feature Swoon to see what I mean) is still firmly represented here. Kudos to him for that.

Highly recommended. And the sex scenes must be seen to be believed. They make Bertolucci's La Luna look positively innocent.

[Beloved Aunt]

I'm not a fan. As thinly and facilely and noncommittally written, shot, conceived etc. as Tom Kalin's film is, it's really barely a movie at all, stretching what feels like maybe 30 seconds worth of material to feature-length. No shade to Julianne Moore, but what she has to work with here is so pale, thin, and ordinary, just a little bit of schtik, it's the millionth variation on "silly diva", "evil diva", "campy diva", "actually-good diva" (in this case, evil) that's she's played and is the most, or rather only, ordinary of them all--certainly of all her work I've seen over the years, it is for me. Like Marlon Brando, she's often a rather self-indulgent screen presence, which isn't necessarily an aesthetic problem, but it can make her a bit more grating, less easeful part of a film, but she doesn't get a chance to do even that in Savage Grace. Apparently budget constraints limited the scope of what the filmmakers could depict, but unfortunately what's left isn't very interesting, in the first place. The aspects of its subject, the life of Tony Baekeland and his enormously wealthy parents, both morally feckless in the extreme in different ways, and how Tony is driven to kill his mother, that this film doesn't do justice to, or even really try to engage with at all, could fill a football stadium. For just one little example, Tony Baekeland's father in real life was a man who actually hated society and frivolous, upper class, appearance-obsessed people, and you might think this would be his or someone's salvation from the vagaries of extreme wealth, but it apparently just made him a more careless, distant, chilly, dreadfully and perhaps, fatally emotionally neglectful parent to Tony. This strange and tragic irony, that a man's misanthropy could extend into utter carelessness towards even one's own flesh and blood child, who presumably has something of his father's personality and outlook, could be dramatized fascinatingly, but instead Brooks Baekeland just vaguely comes off as a slightly dorkily self-important guy who seems vaguely intended to be comical, the portrayer of whom (Stephen Dillane) channels a little Kevin Kline, and that's basically it. What this film's other detractors say is done well, the cinematography and performances, really are nothing special. The deranged and wretched pathos of being driven to kill one's own incestuous mother just to be free of her tormenting you is not just undramatized, it's like this Tony barely feels that at all. He certainly doesn't seem to be insane or even crazed, far from it. I think one better approach would have been a sort of realistic-burlesque of these people's comically horrible extreme shittiness (one picture of Barbara has extreme June Cleaver or Serial Mom vibes, with a little Tracy Flick thrown in), since it really sounds like, in real life, the Baekelands didn't need wealth to turn them into awful people, rather than any Gatsby stuff or worse, what the film actually seems interested in--Barbara Baekeland and Tony and Tony's boring, Land's End catalogue lover are just affectless, wanly and anonymously posh, and a little bit passively and lazily loathsome. I can also report that there is an excessive amount of pouting that reads as someone's rather airheaded and, needless to say, uninspired idea of being posh. The effectively distasteful thing about the fact that nothing Savage Grace glances upon is sufficiently anythinged is that that means, by definition, all it has to offer is its prurient premise and a sort of very low effort fashion-and-gawk-at-the-rich show (Tony has a decent sweater or two), and thus reads as careless elite condescension to its audience, taking their ticket price without truly providing anything in return.

[MichaelB]

Was that some kind of tribute to this year's Nobel laureate László Krasznahorkai?

If so, a mere 618-word paragraph is piddling by his standards.

[Beloved Aunt]

Haha I don't know who the hell that is! You're much more thoroughly well-read than me MichaelB. My teachers always said slovenly run-on sentences were my biggest problem with writing. I guess I've overcome that, only to..er, maybe not actually. It's a big, slovenly paragraph.