There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Its cold atmosphere, the brutal last part. the freshness of performances. a case. discovered as a slowly show ended with a terrible gesture who, at first sigh, has not explanations or motifs but, after a time, small details recreates the meaning of the attitude of young Tony. behind the story, the performances are the leading reason for see Savage Grace. and, sure, the precise portrait of a family story. eccentric, slice of magazine gossip but useful for the fascination dose. a film about solitude. and love. and games. and the impecable art of Julianne Moore and Eddy Redmayne.

Tom Kalin's 'Savage Grace' tells the tragic story of Barbara Daly Baekeland. It looks like the kind of movie that looks great on paper but didn't translate well on screen. For a movie that's shorter than 90 minutes, it moves at an awfully slow pace and the story feels underdeveloped. Kalin uses plenty of photographic visuals but that's not enough to make up for the lacklustre plot. The story is as simple as the following: Barbara is an overprotective mother and dominating wife. Her frustrating and demanding nature causes her husband to leave her for his homosexual son's ex-girlfriend. The son's attempts to reconcile his parents remain futile as his father ignores him. Meanwhile his relationship with his mother becomes more dysfunctional to the point of escalating into a sexual nature. The incest subplot in the movie looked forced, especially the final sex scene which looks as though it was merely included for shock purpose. However, from all this mess, Julianne Moore delivers a shining performance. She alone carries the film while the actor who plays grown-up Tony fails to convince. Stephen Dillane, Elena Anaya and Belen Rueda provide adequate support.

Tom Kalin's film is not a simple story about classical Oedipus complex. Sure, the symbolic death of the father might be found as well as a very literal carnal commerce with the mother. Savage Grace is mainly a story about a boy growing up and struggling with his existential dilemmas and dealing with that to which Jacques Lacan or Zizek would refer as "the real" in opposition to "reality". Here reality is that of a wealthy family with a life full of luxuries and eccentricities. But that's reality. The symbolic order. Beneath all that there is an excess, something that can be neither subdued nor fully explained.Lacan also said that desire would be connected with the real. And thus when desire conquers everything, the ugly truth shows up in the surface. But I won't spoil the grim finale even to those who might have heard about the real case that inspired this story.It's interesting, however, to observe that young Baekeland is in-between-places. His sexuality seems to surmount the models Lacan would include in his orthodox sexuation graphic. He has homosexual encounters at a very early age and then later on. But that does not seem to seclude him from other experiences (namely the incestuous aspect of the relationship with his mother).I would say that the ultimate failure comes from his inability to articulate his desire. And this inability will lead him to act against his own interests in a most nefarious way.

uh. codependency? is that what we call incest these days? the mother crossed the line and did something very damaging to the parent child relationship. what she did gave her son issues that he could not possibly deal with. i do not condone a taboo like incest but i thought this movie was riveting and often brilliant.for those uptight viewers who would never get it in a million years, this movie does not approve or condone incest. in fact almost the opposite. i mean look what happened.neither was the film mindlessly judgmental. i might be an uptight Christian prude, but i'm still grown up enough to recognize a film with depth and insight. i've seen Bertolucci's 'Luna' and many foreign films like the works of Pasolini, so in a way this was nothing new. i admit i was still shocked and freaked out beyond words (i had no idea what the movie was about), but i composed myself, regained my senses and realized this was a film of compassionate insights into a situation that is awfully hard to understand or relate to. i mean i loved my mother dearly but...i don't know, that was a little too loving in my opinion.i don't know what actually happened. i googled this whole thing and some say it stretches the truth some say it was entirely accurate from the son's testimony. whatever, it was a excellent film with incredible performances by the entire cast and a compelling (if not disturbing)screenplay.some people will turn this off and be afraid to watch. not me. through-out my life i have seen so many people behaving badly and so much decadence and corruption that i would'nt be surprised by anything anybody does no matter what their beliefs are. most people lie and well, i don't like what i see my fellow(an overstatement)doing so why would i hold anything against a movie like this. especially when other Christians and the church are so immersed in corruption and lies. remember Haggard and how he told us he was pure and clean, only to find he is seeing a male prostitute and doing meth.sometimes it seems like art and the movies are the last havens for truth and insight. i think i'll go watch some Sister Wendy. she understands art better than anyone and probably would size this one up instantly. whoever reads this, God bless, good luck with the world you'll need it. hang in there and always keep trying the best you can. there are still some of us left that "know".