I loved this movie.....loved the locations in the film; made you feel like you were there; what kept me intrigued was Julianne Moore's performance....I was shocked when I got to the end of the movie and realized this was based on true events.....I highly recommend this film. Sick and twisted but well done. The son in this movie also provides an outstanding performance. The music in the film gave you a real feel of the time period these events occurred. Some parts of the movie may not be for everyone, but it gives you an in depth view of how twisted everyone is in this family. This movie makes me want to read the book and learn more about the woman portrayed in the film.

Others have written some excellent reviews with which I agree so I don't feel the need to go on at length. When I started watching the movie, I was a little bored with it's meandering, talky style, but gradually got sucked into the story. Partly due to some excellent acting, (and may I mention young Barney Clark as the 12 year old Tony, perhaps slightly overshadowed by Eddie Redmayne, but who I thought brought a lot to the role.) As the tale unfolded, I enjoyed the scenery, the gentle pace and it struck me how unique it was and so refreshing after all the special effects, noise and mayhem of much from America. There was a lot missing from the plot, much left to one's imagination but despite that, I am glad I had the chance to see a flawed but enjoyable movie.

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.