''Savage Grace'' is a 2007 drama film directed by Tom Kalin and written by Howard A. Rodman, based on the book ''Savage Grace'' by Natalie Robins and Steven M. L. Aronson. The story is based on the highly dysfunctional relationship between heiress and socialite Barbara Daly Baekeland and her son, Antony. The film stars

Julianne Moore Julie Anne Smith (born December 3, 1960), known professionally as Julianne Moore, is an American actress and children's author. Prolific in film since the early 1990s, she is known for her portrayals of emotionally troubled women in independent ...

Stephen Dillane Stephen John Dillane (; born 27 March 1957) is a British actor. He is best known for his roles as Leonard Woolf in the 2002 film ''The Hours (film), The Hours'', Stannis Baratheon in the HBO fantasy series ''Game of Thrones'' (2012–2015) and T ...

Eddie Redmayne Edward John David Redmayne OBE (; born 6 January 1982) is an English actor. His accolades include an Academy Award, a Tony Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and two Olivier Awards. Redmayne began his professional ac ...

Elena Anaya Elena Anaya Gutiérrez (born 17 July 1975) is a Spanish actress. She garnered public recognition in Spain for her performance in ''Sex and Lucia'' (2001), which also earned her a nomination to the Goya Award for Best Supporting Actress. She st ...

, and Hugh Dancy. It was an official selection at the 2007

London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival held in London, England, in collaboration with the British Film Institute. Founded in 1957, the festival runs for two weeks every October. In 2016, the British Film Institute, BFI estim ...

, the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and the

2007 Cannes Film Festival The 60th Cannes Film Festival was held from 16 to 27 May 2007. British filmmaker Stephen Frears served as jury president for the main competition. Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu won the Palme d'Or for the drama film ''4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 ...

Plot

The film is based on the true story of Barbara Daly Baekeland (Moore), her husband Brooks Baekeland (Dillane), heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune, and their only child Antony (Redmayne), who was diagnosed with

schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...

. The story begins with Antony's birth and follows the family to the time of his arrest for the murder of his mother.

Cast

as Barbara Daly Baekeland *

as Antony Baekeland *

* Unax Ugalde * Belén Rueda * Hugh Dancy

Critical reception

Critics gave the film mixed reviews. The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

'' has a 38% of approval, based on 89 reviews — the consensus reads "though visually compelling, the lamentable characters in ''Savage Grace'' make for difficult viewing."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, another review aggregator, reported the film had an average score of 51 out of 100, based on 28 reviews.

Peter Bradshaw Peter Nicholas Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire'' magazine. Early life and education Bradshaw was educat ...

writing in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' gave the film four out of five stars, describing it as "a gripping, coldly brilliant and tremendously acted movie."

Accolades

''Savage Grace'' was nominated for an

Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay The Independent Spirit Award for Best Screenplay is one of the annual awards given out by Film Independent, a non-profit organization dedicated to independent film and independent filmmakers. It was first presented in 1985 with Horton Foote being ...

in 2008.

Sam Green response to the film

After the film opened, Baekeland's former lover, Samuel Adams Green (played by Dancy in the film), wrote an article pointing out that elements in the film were factually inaccurate, such as the ''

ménage à trois A () is a domestic arrangement or committed relationship consisting of three people in polyamorous romantic or sexual relations with each other, and often dwelling together. The phrase is a loan from French meaning "household of three". ...

'' scene of Barbara, Antony, and Sam having sex. Green then took legal action against the film makers, which was still unresolved at the time of his death.

References

External links

* * {{mojo title, savagegrace 2000s biographical films 2007 crime drama films 2007 LGBTQ-related films 2007 films American biographical films American crime drama films American LGBTQ-related films Drama films based on actual events 2000s English-language films Fiction about schizophrenia Films about dysfunctional families Films about socialites Films set in France Films set in London Films set in New York City Films set in the 1940s Films set in the 1950s Films set in the 1960s Films set in the 1970s Films shot in Barcelona Films shot in France Films shot in London Films shot in Spain French crime drama films English-language French films French LGBTQ-related films Films about incest Spanish crime drama films English-language Spanish films Spanish LGBTQ-related films Crime films based on actual events Films produced by Christine Vachon Killer Films films Films scored by Fernando Velázquez Films about mother–son relationships 2000s American films 2000s French films 2000s Spanish films LGBTQ-related crime drama films English-language crime drama films English-language biographical films