Her performance is so delicately balanced between calculated control and callous chaos that one never knows which way she'll turn and one is always shocked to find out. Moore is flippant one moment and affected the next. Besides, when all the debauchery becomes too much to handle, one can always look to Moore and bask in her brilliance. Kalin is mindful of his audience's likely discomfort but also never afraid to show that audience the dirty details. This is a family that shares baths, beds and lovers. Make no mistake, when I say that the Baekeland's ruin each other and bring about all of their own misfortune, I am not speaking lightly.

This makes it all the more deplorable when Tony abandons reason to embrace his family heritage. All the while though, he centers his attention on Tony so that we never forget who the real victim is. First time feature filmmaker and brave soul, Tom Kalin, tells their revolting yet tragic story in a manner that neither glorifies nor condemns their demented ways. And like the entirely selfish parents they are, they teach their young son, Tony, everything they know. With no real drama to occupy their time, the Baekeland's must create their own and they become experts in the craft. Barbara, a former model and almost famous actress, married into the fortune and it suited her just fine to do nothing but be seen. His father was the inventor of Bakelite, a popular plastic. And even though, as the years pass on, the friends, acquaintances and passersby will have run far away, the Baekeland's still have us.

Rich beyond their own comprehension, the Baekeland's exude an air of arrogance and thrive on the act of acting. Together, Barbara, Brooks (Stephen Dillane) and Tony (Barney Clark as a boy, Eddie Redmayne as an adult), exist in a tiny bubble where they can be seen by and perform for the rest of the world but ultimately exist solely for each other. SAVAGE GRACE tells Barbara's story and that of her incalculable influence on the direction of her very tight family. When I was growing up, my mother could be a little over involved in my life but she's got nothing on Barbara Baekeland (Julianne Moore).

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