by Noleen Wyatt-Jones

Created on: June 18, 2008

All the way through Saving Grace I had to pinch myself as a reminder that this was a true story, as I cringed at yet another almost unbelievable twist, but then real life can sometimes be like that. The insight into the decadent and dysfunctional lives of the wealthy heirs to the Bakelite fortune takes us on an uncomfortable and disturbing journey of debauchery, incest, homosexuality, and murder as we witness the disintegration of a family unit where being rich clearly does not grant automatic happiness.

The story begins in New York shortly after the birth of Antony Baekeland in 1946 and culminates in London in November 1972, when pushed to the brink he murders his social climbing mother, Barbara. The intervening years are filled with stomach turning excess which makes you almost happy to not be wealthy. The intensity of the disturbing relationship between mother and son is played out to maximum cinematic effect.

It is clear from the start that Barbara, played by the wonderful Julianne Moore, has married well above her station to the cold, unemotional but very wealthy Brooks, and unsurprisingly all her affection is then directed towards their only child Tony. Tony, ignored, by his father and smothered by his mother, grows up resentful and gay and seems intent on following his own relentless path to destruction.

Tom Kalin, the Director seems to relish the opportunity the story has given him in order to achieve the maximum shock value, and some of the scenes are genuinely shocking. Perhaps this has been achieved at the expense of the screenplay which at best is patchy. It is also impossible to sympathise with any of the characters and that alone makes it difficult to like the film it is always good to have someone to root for but the main protagonists are all thorough reprehensible and have no redeeming qualities at all. It is without a doubt Julianne Moore who carries the film with her terrific performance as the unbalanced and immoral Barbara; though it has to be said the fact that over the twenty five year period the film covers she does not age a day is a glaring oversight which detracts from the quality. Kalin also valiantly tries to tell too much of the story as we are taken from New York, Paris, Spain and finally to London. This attempt to include all the minutiae of the story only serves to confuse and detracts from the core story.

The film looks good, the rooms are beautiful, the clothes fabulous, but the characters are not well drawn and are quite frankly superficial and any attempt to create a melodrama worthy of the legendary Director Douglas Sirk, fails completely. We watch the film out of morbid fascination rather than because it is compelling, and we leave the cinema feeling distinctly uncomfortable.

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