Savage Grace
When you just look at frames from Savage Grace, you won’t see a bad film. That’s because it stars Julia Roberts and Eddie Redmayne. Also the film itself looks quite professional. However it’s fascinating to delve into why this film manages to be a train wreck.
Acting
The first thing I noticed was the awful acting. Everybody is making their most ridiculous “movie star” impressions. Posing for the camera, the line delivery and ah… who can forget the smoking. The “aesthetic smoking” in this movie — I guess what you would call it, is so inappropriate and cringy.
It’s painful to watch these actors act. It truly is. It’s painful but at times, hilarious. The worst kind of acting is the type that doesn’t come from the heart. Everyone just looks like they want to be over with it as soon as possible.
Editing
What you’ll notice pretty quickly is acting is only the beginning of the problems this film has.
Almost every scene starts at the climax point. This makes it really difficult to care for the characters. Also makes it really jarring when characters are going through their arcs. It’s not elegant. It’s the opposite of elegant.
The film fails to create a story where characters and their actions make sense. It’s completely baffling how hardly the film fails in this aspect. Either they didn’t have the footage (oh god, that means the film was written and shot like this!) or they cut some crucial things in the editing and didn’t realise they were crucial.
Sound and Music
A lot of the sound is awful. You can barely hear what the characters are saying at times. There is a scene where Eddie Redmayne is talking to his father. The waves from the ocean are so loud, you cannot hear what they are saying.
But you’re supposed to.
It’s clearly a mistake. Or they didn’t care.
At other times, the sounds can be odd. At the end when Eddie Redmayne is in the voices sound so amateur. Are they supposed to be coming from outside? Are they in his head? Why are the lines delivered so badly?
An obnoxiously dramatic music used on scenes that start at the climax point make matters worse. I am already disoriented because nothing is building up to this climax. Now with the dramatic music, I know I’m supposed to feel something and not feeling it just makes me baffled and throws me further out the film.
Warning: The rest of this review is not spoiler free.
So who’s at fault? Watching a few interviews, I see the director has the right idea. But for some reason it doesn’t reflect on screen. This might be because he is also the editor. The editing was certainly what makes this film unbearable.
I can see Julia Roberts and Eddie Redmayne as mother and son. It would work in a better movie.
Also the core of the screenplay, it’s story is interesting. Of course, with the abruptly dramatic ending and how Julia Roberts dies with one stab to the stomach etc. just makes me laugh out loud but at it’s core there is material to work with here.
A son replaces his father for his mother. This becomes a great burden he has to live with. This is not bad material.
In interviews, the director says he was interested in the madness that comes out of this situation. Eddie Redmayne says about how Julia Roberts’ character is so used to get what she wants with sex and when Redmayne’s character becomes of age her attention gravitates to him. I wish these things were in the film. I didn’t even realise Redmayne’s character was supposed to be schizophrenic until I read some reviews online.
A film similar without the madness aspect is “Murmur of the Heart”. The father leaves in the third act of the film and a similar situation occurs. But how that story is told is natural and the build up is perfect.
Savage Grace is probably a fascinating case study for anyone who wants to be a filmmaker. Understanding why this film doesn’t work should help you avoid the same mistakes this director did.
Hopefully.
This was his last film.
