Amazon.com: Carol White (Julianne Moore) is a mousy housewife living the affluent life in the San Fernando Valley when, over the span of a few months, she begins to develop debilitating sensitivities to her environment. A permanent at the hair salon makes her nose bleed and her skin go bad, exhaust from a truck causes her to cough violently, she's allergic to the new couch, goes into seizures at the dry cleaner's. No one understands or credits her condition, least of all her husband or family physician. But the symptoms worsen, and Carol eventually discovers others who suffer from similar environmental illnesses. She checks into a desert spa that caters to those in her predicament, and the staff regales her with touchy-feely, infomercial-style affirmations. All of this could have been broad satire, but director Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine) opts for a filming style that captures the empty elegance of Carol's passive lifestyle and looks on with clinical dispassion, so that you can hear the oppressive quiet surrounding her. It's positively eerie, so you know you're not watching just a worthy cause picture or movie of the week. Haynes has more ambition than that, even going so far as to insert a slight buzzing sound in the soundtrack to accentuate the unease. Fluorescent lights? Power lines? Who knows? Maybe it's safe to call it the ominous rumblings beneath the surface of Carol's life, from antiseptic affluence to septic isolation in the spa environment. A model of sustained tone, boasting one of the most remarkable performances by Julianne Moore, from a whole career of remarkable performances. --Jim Gay
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Rating: - Not What I Expected
As an individual who suffers from some chemical sensitivities, I purchased this movie, thinking that it was really going to be an eye-opening movie for those around me who do not smell the off-gassing carpets, particle-board furniture, or fabric softeners. Instead, I found a movie that begins with a woman who suddenly becomes environmentally ill, but ends with her entering a "safe haven," do nothing for her community instead of a true environmental clinic that would actually assist her in improving her health. I was very disappointed in the movie. And, yes, there are some of us who have been over-exposed to some chemicals that truly become environmentally sensitive!
Rating: - Some recoil from pine-scented cleaning power
I had seen this movie a few years ago and really liked it, so I was eager to watch it again at some point and get it up on this site. At that time I was going to gather a themed collection of horror movies that aren't really horror movies, but that idea fell away and now I can't remember what any of the other movies in it might have been.
We open with these credits as we see the driver's POV of a car moving through a subdivision at night. This is the San Fernando Valley of 1987. Then we see Julianne Moore as Carol, having sex with her husband. She is clearly not interested, but she's good, the way she goes through the motions of periodically rubbing his back and giving him a little kiss after he's done. She goes to aerobics class, and afterward her friends observe that she doesn't sweat.
Carol is expecting a new couch to be delivered. She comes home to receive a call from her mother [Carol: ... Read More
Rating: - Safe
This isn't a movie where the heroine struggles against all odds to triumph over her illness as the audience learns facts about it. It's a bleak look at how society fails those who are different or have a problem, then tells them it's their own fault and if they would just do some positive thinking then they'll be fine.
Carol's illness is real, and serves as a metaphor for her alienation from society. Our modern world makes her sick on many levels, but no-one will help her, only blame her. I don't think the movie is as ambiguous as some claim: it's clear that we're meant to sympathise with Carol, and not with her bored husband, uncaring doctor, and greedy self-help guru. If we admit that Carol is really sick, then what does that say about the world we live in?
Kubrick fans won't mind the slow pace; fans of dark satire will enjoy Hayne's harsh take on modern life and self-help cults.
Rating: - I have the illness and I still didn't like the film!
I am a sufferer of multiple food and chemical sensitivities, to the point where I can barely go out into the real world myself and am forced to live a life that most people would find weird to the extreme, avoiding just about everything. That was why I decided to watch this movie. I thought that it was about time someone made a movie about the illness, which is a very real and serious disease. So I sat down to watch the film with an open, receptive mind, ready to be dazzled.
I could not have been more disappointed. This movie was a steaming heap of garbage. The scriptwriter clearly did not understand the illness...that was glaringly obvious. Just as annoyingly, I don't think he knew how to write a decent movie script. It was slow and annoying, and don't expect to feel any empathy for the characters, even the sick ones. I kept waiting for the main character to wake up to just how insane the health cult she ... Read More
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- Not What I Expected
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- Safe
- I have the illness and I still didn't like the film!
