SAFE (1995)

Carol White (Julianne Moore), a homemaker, lives a life without doing the daily chores of a housewife as the family maid takes care of household tasks.  In essence Carol has only one responsibility: her leisure time.  She tries to fill her free time with aerobics, beauty salon visits, and new acquisitions for their safeguarded home.  These activities do not provide an outlet for Carol's own identity as she is a mere trophy wife.  Eventually Carol's body begins to rebel against herself through nausea, headaches, and nose bleeding.  The family doctor examines Carol and he finds nothing wrong as her physical miseries worsen.  Carol is sent to a psychiatrist, but her subdued persona does not cooperate.  Carol's health continues to deteriorate as she discovers an organization that enlightens people about environmental illness.  Environmental illness is an over hypersensitivity to pollution, pesticides, and all other toxins in the environment that exist in foods, perfumes and make-up among other things.  This means that Carol must remove herself from civilization and the world in which she lives.  Carol departs for a new age health sanctuary, Wrenwood, where she begins her recovery.  Initially Carol improves physically, however, as she comes across a closely located highway her health begins to decline again.

Safe has a lingering effect as it slowly moves forward as Haynes purposely displays each scene in order to build a deep understanding of Carol's identity.   It becomes an exploration of Julianne Moore's character as Haynes dissects Carol's psychology through meticulous direction of every scene.  When the scenes are edited together it leaves the audience with a profound insight of Carol's illness.  This insight offers a disturbing experience as Carol's decisions continue to affect her negatively both physically and socially.  Julianne Moore's performance enhances the distortion of her character's mind as she performs brilliantly, which leaves the audience with a fascinating cinematic experience.

DIRECTED BY

Todd Haynes

COUNTRY

USA / UK
REVIEWED
6/19/2004
GRADE


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