In defense of director Tom Kalin, it’s not hard to imagine the Baekeland biography in a gripping cinematic translation. This astounding lack of development and reasoning completely neuters the characters’ impact. Despite all the rich and vivid drama, there’s no focal point or explanation for why seemingly normal people would resort to such depravity and abuse. Raw as it is, Savage Grace doesn’t know what to conclude from the mistakes that define its characters. The parents’ neurotic shortcomings eventually culminate in abandonment and incestuous co-dependency. Barbara and her husband Brooks (Stephen Dillane) shuffle through a toxic marriage while sabotaging the mental health of their son, Tony (Eddie Redmayne).
![savage grace trailers savage grace trailers](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/eaa5ac_ed2ddd65479a80e13f0ed1379a169fea.png)
Tragic and thin, the script hits a perpetual note of disaster from the first act to the climax.
SAVAGE GRACE TRAILERS FULL
Stylistically, all of the staples of Augusten Burroughs and Wes Anderson are in full swing: repressed homosexuality, callous parenting and world-weary voiceovers pasted into a cynical montage of character meltdowns. Aronson, the narrative cherry-picks moments from the family’s histrionic exploits and international ventures. Based on real-life events and the book by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Julianne Moore stars as aspiring socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland, a middle-class drama queen who marries into a dynasty founded generations ago by the inventor of commercial plastic. In a decade when the dysfunctional family has become its own film genre, Savage Grace presents the disturbing true story of an aristocratic clan torn between expectation, decadence and wealth.
![savage grace trailers savage grace trailers](https://reserveresult.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/68289-savinggracetomkalintrailerrr02.jpg)
Good parenting proves a luxury in exploitive family drama Starring: Julianne Moore, Stephen Dillane, Eddie Redmayne Rodman (screenplay), Natalie Robins and Steven M.