Up to this point, one could almost be forgiven for viewing Savage Grace as a comedy of manners-a dark comedy, fraught with tension and riddled with incongruity, but still essentially humorous. For Anthony, his father’s abandonment is inexplicable-Brooks doesn’t even write to his son, cutting himself off entirely from his erstwhile family. But her real sense of loss is not for her husband, but his money and the prestige it brought. Barbara tracks them to the airport, and treats her husband to a wild, vicious, hysterical rant at the checkout desk it’s nice to see Moore let rip for a change, all Barbara’s hang-ups and frustrations spilling out for a startled public. Moore’s finest scene - indeed, the best in the film - comes at the midpoint, when Brooks decides to abandon his family for a younger woman. But Moore lends the character a likeability she perhaps doesn’t deserve, and a genuine pathos. Barbara is a difficult character to judge, constantly, selfishly struggling for definition through her friends, her admirers, her family, her lifestyle. The characters are expertly sketched and superbly played: it is here that Julianne Moore really comes into her own as Barbara, a character who, in her early scenes, seemed harsh and brittle. However, despite all the looming problems, the film exudes warmth, humour and a real lightness of touch. And he is still obsessed with his mother, whose marital troubles are increasing exponentially in line with her neuroses. His face seems bruised somehow, as though beaten into submission by a world he can’t quite relate to. As played by Eddie Redmayne, Anthony is a fey, sensitive boy, still a child despite his age. Anthony is now 21, educated but directionless, spending his time on the beach in Cadaques smoking dope and flirting with locals of both sexes. The mood here is cold, and we get a sense of where the film might be headed, into tragedy and despair.īut after another ten-year leap forward, the tone seems to lighten considerably. Barbara’s self esteem is entirely predicated on her position in society, and her emotional state is clearly fracturing, causing her to lash out at her husband and even her dinner guests. Anthony is a shy, precocious child, emotionally chained to his mother. We shift forward to Paris, a decade later. The period is exactingly recreated, but the focus is all on the characters-their already fractious relationship is thrown into sharp relief when Barbara abandons her husband and jumps into a car with the first stranger who happens past.
The story opens in postwar New York, where Barbara is cementing her position as a society doyen despite her husband Brooks’ reluctance: he’s the heir to the Bakelite fortune, she’s a reckless free spirit who just gave up on her acting ambition to raise his child. As a result, when the cracks start to widen and the true darkness at the film’s heart is revealed, the impact on the viewer is immeasurably heightened. This is not a criticism: for at least the first half it seems very much like an adaptation of a classic American novel, or a slightly darker take on Wes Anderson: a crackpot upper crust family’s trials and travails around European high society. The film is lush, beautiful, and ultimately deeply unsettling, but never feels true. The film tells the story of Barbara Daly Baekeland and her son Anthony, their extravagant lifestyle as American expatriates in Europe throughout the 1950’s and ‘60’s, their incestuous sexual relationship, and the eventual murder of the mother at the hands of the son. It is a disquieting experience to find out after the fact that the events depicted in Tom Kalin’s new film Savage Grace actually happened.