Savage Grace
IFC Films | Release Date: May 30, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
51
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 28 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
12
Negative:
4
Watch Now
Buy on
Stream On

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
83
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
If you might wish the film got deeper under the skin of the characters, you also feel grateful for the fact that you'll never get closer to them than watching it. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
Money, madness, incest and murder! Just the recipe for a twisted mesmerizer of a movie, if it doesn't creep you out. Read full review
75
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
It's still primarily a showcase and offbeat star vehicle for Moore. It's a bravura role and she brings it off with a chilling malevolence and a strange, disjointed vulnerability that almost, but not quite, makes her sympathetic. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
The film walks the fine line between exploitation and empathy to cast a chilly, memorable spell. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Part of the film's failure to arouse real horror is the languid direction; not enough seems to be at stake emotionally. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterBernard Besserglik
U.S. viewers may be put off by its tangled sexual motifs and find its implied social critique a little close to the bone. But even Stateside, Julianne Moore, in her most challenging role in years, will win plaudits and attract mature audiences to a thoroughly absorbing and polished piece of work. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Howard A. Rodman's script has a lot of juice, and the rhythms are so pregnant that the air vibrates with something, even if you're not sure what. Read full review
70
Chicago ReaderAndrea Gronvall
Julianne Moore proves game for anything in this pitch-black true-crime reconstruction. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyOwen Gleiberman
The director, Tom Kalin, stages acid duels, but he should have provided more psychological structure. Though Moore, a great actress, turns fury into verbal music, we're never quite sure what's driving her. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Savage Grace should have the force of Greek tragedy, but Kalin's chamber drama feels curiously stifling and flat, and Moore's volatile turn isn't enough to quicken its pulse. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Living these lives, for these people, must have been sad and tedious, and so, inevitably, is their story, and it must be said, the film about it. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy Burr
A chilly inquest into very bad behavior, Savage Grace is presented to us like an entrée at a five-star French restaurant. It's decadence under glass. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesMark Olsen
It's tough to think of another film in which sex between a mother and her son is not necessarily the worst thing that happens. Read full review
50
VarietyJay Weissberg
Scripter Howard A. Rodman's treatment of an enthralling book is more a series of vignettes rather than a fully connected work, and helmer Tom Kalin seems unable to decide how much Sirkian melodrama to introduce into the heady mix. Gone are the reasons to be fascinated with these people, merely replaced with maddeningly over-arch dialogue and struggles with characterization. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineKen Fox
Has everything one could ask of a true-crime expose. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
The film includes graphic omnisexual and incestuous couplings and has an air of free-floating dread but, especially given its subject matter, it's oddly vacuous – it rarely takes hold emotionally even when its people hit bottom with a resounding thud. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael Phillips
Savage Grace comes up bland and seems to go nowhere in particular. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia Puig
Savage Grace is a thoroughly disturbing story, told in a detached style rendering the overall experience an unsettling blend of lurid and vacuous. Read full review
50
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
Rarely has appalling, reckless behavior been so soporific as in Savage Grace. Read full review
40
Film ThreatJamie Tipps
To be sure, it's a very pretty, well acted production; however, that doesn't make up for the fact that I hated every minute of it. Read full review
40
The New York TimesA.O. Scott
Proust might have known what to do with the Baekelands, but Mr. Kalin and Mr. Rodman don't make much more of them than the mess they apparently already were. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsElizabeth Weitzman
"Grace" may be based on a true story, but barely a moment in it feels real. Read full review
40
EmpireStaff (Not credited)
Savage Grace is simply hysterical: a film as harsh, brittle and unbalanced as its characters. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleSteve Davis
You can almost smell the desperation in the twisted psychosexuality of Savage Grace. Read full review
38
New York PostKyle Smith
For all its outré set pieces it never rises above the level of pretentious trash. Read full review
30
Village VoiceJim Ridley
A tawdry nighttime soap that marvels without insight at its characters' despicable behavior: It squanders a major performance by Moore. Read full review
30
Washington PostStephen Hunter
What Kalin fails to provide in the slightest degree is energy. The movie just sloshes along in a heavy, slightly overdone way. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleWalter Addiego
An unbroken flow of sad or nasty incidents. Read full review
More From This Movie

51 Critic Reviews

5.7 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL