Savage Grace

Savage Grace (2007)
Director: Tom Kalin
Writers: Howard A. Rodman, Natalie Robins (book, based on something actual)
Starring: Julianne Moore, Stephen Diliane, Eddie Redmayne

Synopsis
The story of the Bakeland family in the 60s and 70s, this movie shows the development and breakdown of a family because of a lunatic mother who drivers her husband away and continues to drive her son bonkers until the bitter end.

The Woman
This was alright. i couldn't tell you why i put it on the queue. it was done in a sort of dead-pan way. either to reinforce the behavior of well to do socialites, or completely unintentionally boring. subject matter was a little messed up, but it took an hour and a half to build up to the breaking point, and then the ending was just sort of thrown away. violence occurred without an explosion of emotion, it was just an 'oh.' and then it was over.

julianne moore did a really good job at being a miserable woman, making everyone miserable around her. the kid, was less. maybe there was no reaction, or emotion in his acting because that was the way the kid was raised? i don't know. i could see how this would be a good case for an interesting book, and then not really translating well to a movie. i'm sure there was way to much details about their life and them moving around europe the whole kid's life, and the destruction of marriage, than can be told in movie form.



MOster
This was interesting.  The movie uses voiceover by the son (later understood to be letters written at different points) on top of omniscient-observer point of view to show a relatively small number of events over the course of something like 20 years.  I don't know how much of what's shown is true, but the family as presented is pretty fucking creepy.

The mother really does take the cake here, and Julianne Moore does a pretty good job of showing her various sides and occasional breakdowns.  The dudes who play the son are alright, with the oldest one the best actor and most attractive. But I think both of those categories are taken by the father whose own decline and struggle as he sees how he just can't deal with is wife's shit is the most palpable, especially his shame at the damage it's done to his relationship with his son.

The film wasn't as good as it wanted to be.  Music cues brought you into scenes which didn't quite live up to their promise, and while I really did want to see where things went I didn't end the experience with as much pathos as was obviously intended.  Epilogue title cards added some better closure, but the whole thing was a lot more "huh," than, "ooh" or "wow."