It would be impossible to determine the worst movie of the just-completed Seattle International Film Festival, just as it would the best: Nobody could see all the 250-plus feature films.
But worst-wise, “Savage Grace” would have to be in the running. This movie manages to be both incompetent and affected, and it earns extra negative points for squandering the time and talent of one of our best actresses.
The story is based on fact. It’s a tale of high society and murder, tracking back from a 1972 killing within the upper crust.
The family involved is the Baekelands, heirs to the Bakelite plastics fortune. Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane) is a typical bored jetsetter, which might explain why he married Barbara (Julianne Moore), who is obviously unstable.
She keeps things lively, in a Norman Bates kind of way. Too bad the Baekelands have a kid, Tony (played as a post-adolescent by Eddie Redmayne), who must grow up in their loveless weirdness.
Following in his parents’ footsteps by being almost completely out of step with reality, Tony flounders in search of stability. To say that his mother horns in on his sexual life is a serious understatement.
Speaking of understatement, it’s not this movie’s strong point. Every dire, sicko impulse is telegraphed well in advance.
This movie is both campy and chic, a sort of interior designer’s guide to family dysfunction. No doubt about it, the locations are very pretty, with the wacky Baekelands bopping around New York and Europe in the ’50s and ’60s.
Then you have Julianne Moore, trying her darnedest to make some sense out of a one-note character. She physically inhabits the role, but there’s only so much even a great actress can do.
“Savage Grace” is directed by Tom Kalin, who hasn’t helmed a feature film since 1992’s “Swoon,” an overheated take on another tabloid murder, the Leopold and Loeb case. Let us hope this is his final word on the topic.
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