Savage Grace

Julianne Moore concentrates the title savage grace in her depiction of a magnetic, unrestrained woman as well as a destructive force in Tom Kalin’s film that is based on the actual infamous “American tragedy.” The aestheticized perfection and beauty of the sun-lit, luxurious lifestyle is bond with darkness of the grimly dysfunctional Baekeland family and as the homosexual Tony is growing up, he is pulled deeper and deeper under the morbid, controlling influence of his mother. The history of the desintegration and downfall of a family, all the way to the murder on November 17th, 1972 constitutes a psychologically true drama and an understanding analysis of the motive.