by Spencer Hawken

Created on: June 19, 2008   Last Updated: February 11, 2009

Barbara Baekland (Julianne Moore) is a wealthy socialite, who lives off the adventures and stories of her husband Brooks (Stephen Dillane) expeditions in search of ancient mysteries. Barbara spends her day looking after her son Tony, while spending her nights organising dinner parties with the people any good socialite needs to be seen with. The trouble with Barbara is that she has a vile temper and a low tolerance of alcohol; the two together make her an embarrassment to her husband as she repeatedly alienates people who would at one time cut their arm off to be with. Starting in the 1940's and moving forward to 1972 as the movie progresses Savage Grace follows the disturbing journey of Barbara and her son Tony as their relationships become more and more disturbing.

Savage Grace is an adaptation of the true life tale of Babara Baekland, wife of Brooks who was the grandson of Leo Baekland the creator of Bakelite plastic. The story follows this destructive relationship between Barbara, Tony, Brookes, and family friend Sam over a period of time. The result of the movies events lead up to one of the biggest American tragedies of all time, and a violent murder.

Savage Grace is a very disturbing tale, made incredibly creepy by the narration by Eddie Redmayne who plays Tony, most pieces of narration open with Tony saying "Mummy...." in a somewhat disturbing manner. Within the first minute of the movie opening his narration is heard, and I found myself thinking "What a disturbing little freak!" This creepy narration leads the way through a movie that sickens you the more you watch it. To consider that the events of the movie are true, and not fictionalised ones makes things even worse.

Why am I so sickened I hear you cry, me the person that watches horror movies for fun? Well it all surrounds the fact that Tony is raised in such a bizarre manner. While Barbara and Brookes head off for a spot of buggery, Tony (aged 10) is left at home with a young Spanish boy and it's made very apparent that he has been experiencing a similar act. As Tony becomes a man he experiments in sex with both men and women, settling on the fact that he must be gay. But after a three in a bed session with one of the participants being his very mother, Tony decides that it's his mother he should be making love with, and she rather disturbingly takes advantage of this situation. In one scene she turns to Tony saying "I love your new boxer shorts!", "I picked them out myself" he replies as she undoes

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