Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Julianne Moore, Eddie Redmayne, Stephen Dillane, and Hugh Dancy star in "Savage Grace," a 2007 film directed by Tom Kalin. It is the true story of the Baekland horror show that took place in 1972. Julianne Moore is the beautiful socialite Barbara Baekland, who married into the Bakelite fortune and gave birth to a son, Tony (Redmayne). As the years pass, Brooks Baekland (Dillane) leaves Barbara and takes up with Tony's girlfriend, and Barbara travels, bored wherever she goes. Tony is gay or bisexual, though I don't think in the film he is portrayed as bisexual, and takes up with various lovers. At one point, he is a threesome with his mother and the art dealer Sam Green (Dancy).All of this boredom and unhappiness leads to tragedy in 1972.Since this is a story about the bored rich, it's a difficult one to keep moving, and it doesn't. The film is slow but beautifully photographed, but there is not enough back story to make the characters more accessible to the viewer. We see Barbara as somewhat depraved and capable of horrible temper outbursts. Julianne Moore does a wonderful job, portraying both coldness and sexuality. She is stunning, particularly in an early scene where she wears a purple gown. This may have been the gown Karl Lagerfeld designed for Moore when he learned that she was doing the film.Eddie Redmayne is inspired casting, not only for his acting ability but his resemblance to Moore in his coloring. Baekeland tried to "fix" Tony by hiring prostitutes to have sex with him. When that failed, she apparently tried to have sex with him herself.Antony displayed increasingly signs of schizophrenia with paranoid tendencies; he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. His father initially refused to allow him to be treated by psychiatrists because he thought them "amoral." The deeply-disturbed Tony is a victim of his mother's depravity and wanderlust, and he spends time trying to reunite her with his father to no avail. Her victimization of him leads Tony to suppress his anger, and when it emerges, it's explosive.This movie is not to everyone's taste, but knowing the story, I did like it. But I was always aware it could have been stronger with a better script that didn't hop around so much, omitting parts of the story. It was too choppy.I knew Sam Green personally, and he wasn't bisexual; he was straight. He also never thought Barbara slept with her son, and he said the threesome never took place. At the time of his death, he was suing the filmmakers. His character appears in another film, Factory Girl, due to his friendship and art dealings with Andy Warhol. He also purchased paintings on behalf of John & Yoko and was a close friend of Greta Garbo and Diana Vreeland.All that high society and high living didn't seem to make anyone in the story particularly happy, something stories about the rich always try to tell us. I think this film shows that what gets them is that sometimes, like Barbara, they have little purpose in life. It's the south of France in one season, Palm Beach in another, New York in another, always seeing the same people and always doing the same things - drinking, lying in the sun, having affairs, and gambling. Truthfully it doesn't sound all that bad.

I'm only adding this 'review' because - depending on what you expect of the art form of cinema - other than Julianne Moore's really impressive performance, which based on a larger than life real person, would be the ONLY reason to tolerate viewing this.Otherwise, although based on a true story (and personages), this film uses an event to precipitate the (true) tragic denouement that can only be purely fanciful, salacious supposition (by the screenwriter H. Rodman presumably) as there is and can be no possible verification that it ever occurred; by which it's the definition of gratuitous depiction, for which one could argue the filmmakers should be ashamed!True, it centres around both the Mother's (Juliane Moore's) and son's (Eddie Redmayne playing mostly troubled vacant look throughout) character's personal revelation / confessions (at least according to the writers of the book on her - Baekeland's - life, that this is taken from) - that they had an incestuous relationship - ostensibly to 'cure' him of homosexuality - but that's all. And which even in this latter aspect, in its 'other shocking' portrayal that son, homosexual lover and Mother had a menage a trios, is not only pure speculation but was one so resolutely refuted by the real life character portrayed (Hugh Dancy), that he had sued the production right up until his death that this - too - was not true = another pure salacious supposition again.So basically, it's a con on its audience: real people trumped up with unsubstantiated salaciousness: and yet, knowing how weird the whole family really were (that historical true tragic denouement) it could have been genuinely engrossing (rather than just gross!) because the Baekeland's were renowned for not only hosting (first hand account told) "risqué" (debauched!) soirees, as being social butterfly socialites, hobnobbed with the likes of Garbo, Dali, author Tennesee Williams, Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, various minor royalty - even booze barons (Dubonnet and Heineken) - but NONE of whom are referred to in this travesty of a film - except for brief references to (artist?) Duchamp when shown commiserating with his widow at his funeral.Even Tony's descent into first drug depravity is under-represented (played? - if at all really), and then subsequent clinical madness is then only lamely summed up in mere closing captions.Unless you love J. Moore performances and want to catch her portrayal here, this is not only waste, but a travesty con!

Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane) is the heir to the Bakelite plastics from his grandfather. He does no work just like his father. He has a volatile marriage to Barbara (Julianne Moore). He is dissatisfied with their son Antony (Eddie Redmayne). As the family dysfunction increases, Barbara gets ever more closer to Antony leading to complicated sexual relationship along with Sam Green (Hugh Dancy).Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne deliver a couple of solid performances. It's filmed with a cold distant beauty. The movie is missing the intensity and the psychological thrills. The closing text describes some crazy plot developments after the movie ends. The first half could be compressed while the final text could be played out on the screen. This should be a character study of Antony rather than following Barbara.

Overall, I thought "Savage Grace" was an okay movie. The movie portrayed the story in a perfect way Juliane Moore did a good job from what I have read playing Barbara Baekeland. It really showed the dysfunctional, and allegedly incestuous relationship between the not so "perfect" socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland and her son, Antony. I liked this movie/story because it really shows how money does not create happiness. One of my favorite quotes was one that Antony says,"One of the uses of money is that it allows us not to live with the consequences of our mistakes." I thought the narration coming from Antony allowed the audience to feel for both him and his mother. Barbara played by Moore, was able to act so well that she was both the victim and yet the perpetrator which was interesting to watch.