Adultery, sodomy, suicide, incest and murder are rarely ever components of a boring story, especially when they are all intended to come gracefully together. Interestingly enough, the elegance in which the controversial topics are combined in Savage Grace is curiously harmonious, considering the movie’s plot is so segregated. The six-part film is too choppy to allow any fluidity as a complete and shocking tale, and the attempt at translating the complex book it’s based on is weak. Nonetheless, Julianne Moore rarely ever fails at captivating an audience, and her powerful and brave performance alone allows the film to possess some degree of success. The ideas for the plot are there, but uniting all the events of the shockingly true story is perhaps too much to convey as one cohesive film. Some stories may be better off staying in print.

Savage Grace is the story of the Baekeland family, the heirs to the plastic fortune of the earlier 20th century: Brooks (Stephen Dillane), the grandson of the plastic pioneer, Barbara (Moore), his endlessly controversial and volatile wife, and their son, Anthony (Eddie Redmayne). The movie spans over a period of 26 years (1946–1972) in six distinctively separate parts. The scenes and settings are one of the most aesthetically enthralling aspects of the film, ranging from various time periods in London, Paris, New York, Mallorca and Cadaques. It is undeniably challenging to film in exotic locations while keeping a movie appropriately accurate for the times in which it is depicting, but director Tom Kalin is able to create Grace with near-perfect certainty. Whether or not that’s the reason why the acute attention to the settings cause the rest of the film to suffer as one solid movie is questionable. Nevertheless, getting sporadic glimpses of the Baekelands’ lives is enough to hold viewers’ attention, considering Grace is a quintessential example of “You really couldn’t even make this stuff up.”

Barbara and her husband Brooks constantly exist at opposite energies of a magnet, beginning with her desperate (but well disguised) need to fit in with the upper class and Brooks’ consistent misunderstanding of her. Barbara is a vision amongst her peers (once named one of the top 10 most beautiful women in New York City), but somewhat of a pest to her cold, arrogant husband. From the time of Tony’s early childhood, there is an instant feeling of disdain Brooks seems to have for his son, contrary to Barbara’s obsession and love for him. Barbara seeks personal validation from Tony as early as 12 years old (since she clearly receives none of it from her husband), which plants the seed of an unhealthy and perverse mother-son relationship.

Brooks eventually ends up leaving his wife and son for the first girlfriend Tony has, leaving insecure Barbara completely dependent on her teenage son. The two continue to move their home all over Europe, a clear sign of loneliness and lack of identity. Eventually Tony’s true homosexuality is brought to the surface and quickly repressed by his mother’s copulation with him. Obviously this is no way for a man to be healthily raised, which is later proven by his psychotic murdering of his own mother. This digression, however, is entirely too rapid, and in turn, more difficult for viewers to understand. Only able to be recognized at the end, the film simply seems to be saying, “These are the reasons why Tony Baekeland went utterly insane.”

The incest, adultery and homosexuality in Savage Grace are all anticipated, but Barbara’s life as a whole is chopped up in six frustratingly incomplete parts. It truly leaves audiences wondering if the film may not have been about Barbara’s life, as it originally seemed, but more about a list of how to raise the perfectly psychotic and antisocial child in as many unadulterated ways as humanly possible. It is downright preposterous to like any of the characters in the film, as audiences will have a hard time identifying with them on any level. Savage Grace is a constant showcase of Brooks, Barbara and Tony as monsters, each in their own right.

Luckily for Kalin, Moore and the rest of the cast are able to carry the film with outstanding and brave performances. Even though the dialogue seems like it was written for the stage rather than the screen, Moore and Redmayne, in particular, manage to make it sound human. At times, one could easily question the scenes by saying, “No one really talks like that,” but viewers will be convinced otherwise solely based on Moore’s effective and convincing acting.

Ultimately, Savage Grace fails in its writing and plot structure, but is revived by its excellent cast, beautiful locations and the shocking true story it is based on. Basically, if you are interested in the history of the Baekeland family, avoid the movie and read the book by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson. However, if you enjoy Julianne Moore, beautiful and exotic locations and are contemplating the appropriateness of mother-son relationships, see Savage Grace.

Savage Grace is now playing in limited release.

For more information, visit ifcfilms.com.