Savage Grace poster & wallpaper

Julianne Moore, Stephen Dillane, Eddie Redmayne

Julianne Moore stars in this dramatization of the shocking Barbara Daly Baekeland murder case, which happened in a posh London flat on Friday 17 November 1972. The bloody crime caused a stir on both s...( read more  read more... )ides of the Atlantic and remains one of the most memorable American Tragedies...

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39% liked it

1,834 ratings

Critics

40% liked it

86 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 37 min.

Directed by: Tom Kalin

Release Date: May 18, 2007

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DVD Release Date: December 23, 2008

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Flixster Reviews (683)

  • mrpopcorn
    June 6, 2009
    mrpopcorn
    "Truth is more shocking than fiction."

    A dramatization of the shocking Barbara Daly Baekeland murder case, which happened in a posh London flat on Friday 17 November 1972. The bloody crime caused a stir on both sides of the Atlantic and remains one of the most memorable...( read more) American Tragedies...

    REVIEW

    I always have some difficulty with films that are unashamedly brilliant yet difficult to watch. Not in the sense of mentally and artistically challenging (although Savage Grace does this) but in the sense of being downright unpleasant.

    The film follows the (true) story of a mismanaged inheritance, complicated by incest and matricide. It is a compelling character study of a young boy left with no sense of direction, no reliable role model and, in an atmosphere where he can seemingly want for nothing, having no-one whom he can trust. Julianne Moore plays the mother with all of her practiced skill, switching from heavily interiorised emotion to outbursts of rage. A complex character, she is desperately trying to find herself, to find some meaning in her existence. An existence where she constantly affirms a society role of being at the crest of a wave. The bisexuality of a man she trusts as a friend later becomes a factor that helps to sheer away her moorings.

    Savage Grace is a dark, dark film. For strong constitutions only.
  • armybratgeo
    May 3, 2009
    armybratgeo
    Wow...what to say. I saw previews for this and thought I give it a try. Only later on found out that this was based on the real life of Barbara. WTH was wrong with that lady? The overall movie was very well done, the cast was amazing and I actually enjoyed it all very much. Very ...( read more)disturbing thought the relationship betweeen a Mother and her son, the whole time I was sitting there just shaking my head. Kinda don't know what to think or say about it all...
  • StaisilD
    February 9, 2009
    StaisilD
    Savage Grace tells the true story of the Baekelands, a mid-century, upper-class American scandal involving incest, murder, and madness. A former actress turned desperate socialite, Barbara Daly Baekeland (Julianne Moore) attempts to cover her lack of self-esteem by aggressively d...( read more)oting on her son, Tony (Eddie Redmayne), and trying to hold the attention of her cheating husband, Brooks (Stephen Dillane). With profound psychological problems, Barbara is lost when Brooks finally leaves her, turning her poisonous attention to Tony, who spends any rare time away from his mother exploring his homosexuality. As the years go by, Tony becomes hopelessly bound to Barbara, who's struggling to find love any way she can, eventually turning her advances toward her own child. An uneasy and extremely disturbing exploration of what humans are to one another. Moore is delightfully, lustful as Barbara; physically alluring. Eddie Redmayne is bland as the disconnected Tony, giving us little in the way of transitional moments. Hugh Dancy offers an entertaining cameo as a bisexual suitor for Barbara. Kalin's direction is solid and the film is almost the most unsettling in how gorgeous it looks with the combination of set, costume, lighting, cinematography, and production design despite the horrific goings on.
  • katharinec
    January 29, 2009
    katharinec
    This movie was just trying to be weird. If it had taken more time to get me personally involved with the characters, to understand them better, maybe I wouldn't have minded all the over-stylized "omg did you know incest is odd etc" self-indulgent bs. It wasn't the plot - and yes ...( read more)i know it's a true story - it was the approach to the subject matter. With a story like this one, there was such an opportunity to create something truly profound. But opportunity missed I guess.
  • ceWEBrity
    January 11, 2009
    ceWEBrity
    Circling around Savage Grace is this insane self-contained vortex of almost inhuman behavior, a white trash atom bomb just barely held back at the seams by these delusions of class and nobility. Director Tom Kalin is this story's downfall; he doesn't know how to efficiently drip ...( read more)in these juicy little bits of drama and create a cohesive narrative at the same time, so what we end up with here is a tangential collection of really bizarre shocking scenes.

    This movie is nowhere near good. There are traces of absolute exquisiteness to be found in the writing, visual composition, and narrative, and Julianne Moore's performance is one of the bravest and most thoughtful she's given in years. Savage Grace is clearly a movie informed by some really sensational tidbits. The problem is they just don't come together to make anything worth championing. The movie is wildly entertaining trash dressed up real pretty, which renders it this awesomely self-aware yet bizarrely delusional piece of uniqueness. It really does have to be seen to be believed.

    The more I say about this experience, the more it will compromise it for you, as going into the movie with a clean slate will make the film all the more shocking and ribald and utterly hilarious. Anyway, there's nothing quite like this to be seen in 2008, and if you're a fan of Moore or just over-the-top drama this is a definite must. It's divisive and your mileage may vary, but I think everyone should give it a shot.
  • LiStIv
    October 25, 2009
    LiStIv
    Strange tale of incest and forbidden love.
  • Fractalor
    October 22, 2009
    Fractalor
    I can't rate something that is'nt available to watch..
  • gultenreiz
    September 24, 2009
    gultenreiz
    if someone in this world thinks he has a problematic family, then he or she should see this.
    let see the family c.v.:
    -father: Brooks Baekeland - rich, no ocuppation, womaniser, bad father, bad husband
    -mother: Barbara Baekeland - failed actress, maniac-depressed.
    -son - Anton...( read more)y Baekeland - whimp, no will, no plans, with a passion for his mother and his mothers gay lover, with sociopath tendencies.
    When Brooks leaves his family for his sons underaged girlfriend, Barbara begins an affair with a gay gigolo (Hugh Dancy), who occasionaly gets into Antonys bed, and sometimes the 3 of them share the same bed, when , of course the mother and son don't sleep with each other. the affair ends like a greek tragedy, with a murder...
    If "savage grace" was just fiction, it would have been a perfect exemple of oedip complex, but beeing based on some horrible people true story, I just don't bother to read to much into this movie. and by the way, why those people deserved a movie about them?...
    the acting was fine, Hugh Dancy was terrible as the gay gigolo.
  • magnolia12883
    September 23, 2009
    magnolia12883
    Tom Kalin's small-scale period epic is the unnerving, unsavory tale of a mother and son racing each other into madness; the results are occasionally intriguing but ultimately underwhelming. Julianne Moore is Barbara Daly, who married Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), heir to th...( read more)e fortune his grandfather made by creating the Bakelite. The couple was a society fixture throughout the 1940s, 50s and 60s in both New York and Paris. Barbara, as portrayed here, was a rather pretentious young woman who glittered in the limelight of high society, feeling superior to everyone - including her husband. The film opens with the trouble marriage between Brooks and Barbara and introduces their infant son Tony. As Tony grows up, he is an avid French student and an obvious homosexual with an increasingly, unhealthily close relationship to his mother. As a young adult, Tony (Eddie Redmayne) explores all that life has to offer, ultimately settling on a boyfriend - with whom he shares a sexual relationship with his own mother. I can't decide where it was that this film lost me - was it the scene where Barbara's husband practically rapes her from behind, the scene where Tony, Barbara and their boyfriend have the beginnings of a threesome, or the penultimate scenes where Tony and Barbara have sex? In all honesty, nothing about this is offensive particularly - it's just not handled in a way that engages throughout. You wouldn't think such material could be a bit boring, but it can and is here. Finally, in a London flat on November 17, 1972, Tony stabbed Barbara in the gut with a kitchen knife after some sort of insane misunderstanding. He killed her, went into a mental institution, and was released a few years later. A subtitle at the film's end tells the rest. The film is the first feature directed in 15 years by Tom Kalin, who made "Swoon" (1992), about the Leopold and Loeb murder case. Here, we have the materials of an interesting movie without the payoff. It's all sort of creepy and unnerving in theory, but not in practice. In fact, it's pretty bland. It must be said that Moore, one of our greatest actresses, does what she can with the performance as Barbara, and that's about the best element of the film, which is also handsome enough to look at. Other than that, it's much ado about nothing.
  • liquidstone14
    September 16, 2009
    liquidstone14
    A sordid, tedious film-- intentionally so-- who challenges the viewer to keep watching as the lead characters (I hesitate to call them 'protagonists') descend into a profound pit of human relationship paralysis. Although Moore's equally pathetic and frightening star turn blows ea...( read more)ch and every other character off the screen, Savage Grace is essentially a story about her son, played convincingly by Eddie Redmayne, whose life was mostly led at the mercy of her mother's taste for high society and not to mention frequent outbursts & embarassingly childish theatrics. The effect that the script's progression has lies somewhere between devastating and off-putting, though it must be noted that one will frequently ask themselves if there is any purpose to telling this story in cinematic form. The extremely lavish interiors, bad musical score, abrupt flash-forwards and troubling interludes all make for an interestingly trashy melodrama in parts, but not a compelling film as a whole.

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Critic Reviews

October 1, 2008
Pete Hammond, Hollywood.com

This tale of class differences, social climbing, illicit affairs, incest and murder creates an emotional wall between the characters and the audience. full review

July 4, 2008
Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

Though the characters may be repellent, the film permits you to feel sympathy. full review

June 26, 2008
Colin Covert, The Minneapolis Star Tribune

If ever there was a film to extinguish any envy of the lifestyles of the rich and famous, Savage Grace is it. full review

June 13, 2008
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Living these lives, for these people, must have been sad and tedious, and so, inevitably, is their story, and it must be said, the film about it. full review

May 31, 2008
Marcy Dermansky, About.com

an oddly compelling film about contemptible people doing contemptible things to each other. full review

May 30, 2008
Kyle Smith, New York Post

The movie is based on a true story, but for all its outré set pieces it never rises above the level of pretentious trash. full review

May 30, 2008
A.O. Scott, The New York Times

Savage Grace doesnâe(TM)t seem quite sure of how to communicate its own fascination with such doings, whether to convey shock, envy, pity or bemusement.

May 29, 2008
Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

Director Tom Kalin is a huge talent, and working from a script that Howard Rodman carved out of a book by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson, he uses dark humor and artful style to pull you into a... full review

May 28, 2008
Armond White, The New York Press

Neither savage nor graceful, Savage Grace's creaky -- and creepy -- tale of mother-son incest doesn't get the art-film benefit-of-the-doubt that led critics to acclaim Swoon. full review

May 27, 2008
David Edelstein, New York Magazine

In its frigid way, Savage Grace is potent: It makes incest a state of mind. full review

View more Savage Grace reviews at RottenTomatoes.com

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