“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.” - Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
“Moore, in a nearly unplayable role, is amazingly vivid and touching; this is a heartbreaking portrait of a woman in full, panicked retreat from life.” - Terrence Rafferty, New Yorker
"Julianne Moore gives an astonishing performance as Carol White, a suburban housewife whose affluent environment suddenly turns against her. SAFE is a bold, darkly comic, completely original drama, depicting Carol's descent into the horrors of modern-day living ... It will seize any viewer who dares to surrender to its spell. Feel free to laugh or scream." -Richard Corliss, Time Magazine
Opens January 23 | Julianne Moore gives a breakthrough performance as Carol White, a Los Angeles housewife in the late 1980s who comes down with a debilitating illness. After the doctors she sees can give her no clear diagnosis, she comes to believe that she has frighteningly extreme environmental allergies. A profoundly unsettling work from the great American director Todd Haynes, Safe functions on multiple levels: as a prescient commentary on self-help culture, as a metaphor for the AIDS crisis, as a drama about class and social estrangement, and as a horror film about what you cannot see. This revelatory drama was named the best film of the 1990s in a Village Voice poll of more than fifty critics.
Awards & Nominations
Nominee - Best Feature, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Female Lead (Julianne Moore), Film Independent Spirit Awards
Winner - FIPRESCI Prize - Special Mention, Rotterdam International Film Festival
The Film Center is ADA accessible. This presentation will be projected without open captions. The theater is hearing-loop equipped. For accessibility requests, please email filmcenter@saic.edu