This movie revolves around the life of Carol White, a Southern wealthy woman, who lives in harmony with her family in San Fernando Valley, where she struggles against having a weird illness that risks her life.
In many ways, 'Safe' predicts both the insular nature of contemporary society, and the (counter-intuitive) disease of conformity that's synonymous with it.
You'd have to be cranky or blind to deny Haynes' artistry and vision. There's a dark power, a tremor that runs through the movie like the rumble of a secret dread.
Moore, evidently under Haynes' instruction, gives a performance composed of near-total inertia. Her pale lifelessness -- meant to be frightening, I suppose -- is merely irritating.
Safe is brilliant for the way Haynes, with cinematographer Alex Nepomniaschy and composer Ed Tomney, blankets the mundane in the eerie tone of science fiction and horror.
In a summer of heavyweight action movies and flyweight romantic comedies, I don't think you'll find a more provocative little number than Safe, which creeps under your skin like a rash.
For all its disquiet, Safe is truly about the terror of losing control-or, even more frightening, being made aware of the fact that we never had control to begin with.
