Safe *** (1995, Julianne Moore) – Classic Movie Review 1530

Writer-director Todd Haynes’s smart and highly intriguing 1995 drama stars Julianne Moore, who gives a superb portrayal of a woman in ultimate peril as an allergy victim to the everyday pollution in her own surroundings. A wealthy California housewife, Carol White (Moore) seems to have everything, but she becomes sicker and sicker, sensitive to common toxins like exhaust fumes and aerosol spray.

Haynes’s movie is a very odd, intelligent and thought-provoking Anglo-American art-house movie, that thoroughly impresses even if is not always entirely satisfying. Nor is it entirely easy to watch, and it does get a bit draggy as it runs into overtime at two hours. However, some of it is engrossing and impressive, not least that Julianne Moore performance, which alone makes the film worthwhile.

And, afterwards, you’re really glad you saw it and there’s plenty to talk about. Is it an AIDS metaphor or a wider parable about the way we live? Safe took Haynes, the director of Poison in 1991, away from his roots in the New Queer Cinema, but now it seems a by-way. He went on to Velvet Goldmine and Far from Heaven (also with Moore).

Xander Berkeley, Peter Friedman,Dean Norris and James LeGros also star.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1530

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