good back-story, and good acting

A Disappointing Continuation

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Millions of people in every democracy have illnesses for which there is no correct diagnosis. The lucky ones eventually find out what's "wrong" with them. Here we have a woman who has everything to live for until she suffers from something that no one can understand and often doubt.Julianne Moore carries this film as its central character. The supporting & surrounding characters cover the attitudes of doubt, resentment, paternalism, empathy, indifference, ignorance, apprehension, caring, understanding & compassion. Carol White's submissive personality & helplessness at first results to her becoming victimized by those looking for a quick solution to her pain. On its surface, this film is about Carole and her illness. On another level, it's about a chain of unfortunate events that can overtake our lives. Unless we go through it ourselves, we cannot fully understand the loneliest chapters in other people's life story.

Seems like Todd Haynes is definitely a director with a certain skill for visualizing and really executing certain themes and ideas in ways that, if not entirely original, are surely very unique in their presentation. This film, like many have said, could really stand for a lot of different things (AIDS being the most obvious one) but it's definitely concerned with those types of ambiguities and metaphors that serve another type of resonance. The acting is fantastic, Moore actually giving one of the best performances from her entire career (shame it's such an underrated/underseen flick because I could see it having been a lot more popular). The film as a whole is very well developed.

I had heard the title and seen the poster for this poster a few times, and I knew the leading actress and that it featured in the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die book, so I had to see it, from director Todd Haynes (Far from Heaven, I'm Not There.). Basically, set in 1987 in a prosperous neighbourhood of the San Fernando Valley, homemaker Carol White (Julianne Moore) has a seemingly unremarkable life, but then she develops a chronic medical condition, multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS, or the "Twentieth-Century Disease"), and she experiences many severe non-specific symptoms that she believes are triggered by everyday household and industrial products. She passes her days with gardening, taking clothes to the dry cleaners, attending aerobics classes and various other activities, and her marriage to husband Greg (Xander Berkeley) is stable but lacking emotional or sexual intimacy, and her husband has a son from a previous marriage who lives with them, and she only has distant friends. She goes about her days with her normal routine, and then she develops this unpredictable and unusual bodily reactions to things, such as persistent mental exertion, coughing uncontrollably (with truck exhausts around), symptoms of asthma, nose bleeding, vomiting and involuntary muscular convulsions. The doctors only conclude that she has an allergy to milk, which she drinks regularly without consequence, but they do not have a clue of her other symptoms, and they have no help to cope or cure her, so she decides to attend psychotherapy sessions, which do not give her any better answers of her condition. She then sees an advertisement at her community centre for a New Age/religious retreat in the desert called Wrenwood which is designed to bring people together and help them overcome and cure themselves from suffering MCS, in various ways, mostly group sessions, headed by phony but "sensitive" Peter Dunning (Peter Friedman), and by the end this does seemingly work well enough for her to return home. Also starring Kate McGregor-Stewart as Claire, Mary Carver as Nell, Susan Norman as Linda, Steven Gilborn as Dr. Hubbard, Ronnie Farer as Barbara, James LeGros as Chris and Jodie Markell as Anita. Moore is very interesting as she slowly breaks down due to the many elements of the modern world, the plot of a person becoming ill with almost no reason or circumstance at all is intriguing, I admit the pace is a little slow, but the claustrophobic, psychological and haunting "monster movie without a monster" feel makes for a watchable drama. Very good!

One of the most important figures of modern independent American cinema, Todd Haynes is widely known mostly for his music-based projects ( ''Velvet Goldmine'', ''I'm not there'', ''Superstar : the Karen Carpenter story'' and the videoclip for Sonic Youth's ''Disappearer'' ). But it's 1995's ''Safe'' that, although not related to music ( except for the amazing soundtrack ), stands out as his greatest work by far - and that is because it proves once more something that seems paradox at first glance : that the most ''anti-American'' culture that we've known so far, is the American culture itself.Carol White ( Julianne Moore in the greatest moment of her multifarious career ) is a bourgeois housewife that leads a peaceful and safe ( motif that obviously repeats itself several times throughout the film ) life with her husband and her adopted son in their luxurious house. Her daily routine is limited to aerobic classes, choosing the right color for the new sofa and having healthy meals with the rest of the good housewives - her friends. While the story unfolds she goes through some crises that look like epileptic and she starts believing more and more that its due to the effects of the environmental disaster, like the infected air she breathes in the city, or the chemical products she consumes on daily basis - and that's enough with the synopsis cause I already gave away a lot.Judging from all the above, someone would imagine that this is just a film with eco-friendly messages and indeed, this is the impression that the viewer gets around halfway through the film. Sure, the emotional emptiness of her family routine and her materialistic way of life has been made clear so far, but until then her emotional crisis doesn't seem to connect to the environmental crisis in any convincing way. The viewer is trying to connect the pieces, completely unsuspected about what's coming up next - and be sure that it's going to shake and flutter you like few other movies do.The ideology that dominates the world right now, not only in the US of course but globally, has too many aspects and the environmental crisis is only a small part of its effects in the social life - also in the film, it's going to be proved that the ecological extension is just an excuse. What really matters here is the basis upon which this ideology is build, meaning everything that feeds it and promotes on a daily basis ''from below'' : the path of individualism and family alienation from society create the need for safety from everything that threats to shake the peaceful life of the proud ''civilian'' - and that's exactly what Carol is. A low-profile, exemplary, law-abiding citizen that minds her own business and that once in a while ''breaks'' the routine by drinking tea with lemon at her friends' or trying a perm for a change. However, she's completely helpless fulfilling her need for emotional contact and, in what seems a huge step for her from what we've known so far, she decides to change her way of life drastically. Convinced that the root of all her problems is the exhaust gas of the big city, she cages herself in an even more limited environment, a strictly closed society that promises peace and serenity to her. ''We are safe, and all is well in our world'' teaches the new ''alternative'' mentor and he warns her that she is the sole responsible for everything that spoils her peace - and that is because ''she doesn't love herself too much''. Carol is willing to believe anything to find a cure, but her new cage is as deadlock as the previous one, only this time human contact is restricted by rules. The shockingly ironic last scene still haunts me every time I walk alone in the dark.