Truth proves more shocking than fiction in 'Savage Grace'

Dysfunctional families have been a staple movie subject for decades, but few have been as decadently dysfunctional as the family unit of "Savage Grace," a searing domestic drama that played SIFF three weeks ago and begins its theatrical run Friday.

Based on a book by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson, it's the shocking true story of Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), heir to the Bakelite plastics fortune; his social-climbing wife, Barbara (Julianne Moore); and their troubled son, Tony (Eddie Redmayne).

Spanning more than 40 years, the saga begins with the couple's World War II marriage and 1946 birth of their son and follows them through their dilettantish life as wealthy expatriates in the social whirl of France and Spain in the '50s and '60s.

At first very close, the family begins to divide as Brooks is drawn to a younger woman (in fact, his teenage son's girlfriend), Barbara becomes increasingly neurotic and the aimless, spoiled and very handsome Tony becomes increasingly sexually confused.

The movie plays better if you don't know where it's heading, but that innocence may be hard to retain, since its outcome is one of the most publicized and luridly sensational murders of the '70s. In any case, I won't ruin it for anyone here.

The director is Tom Kalin, who made an impressive debut with his 1992 take on the Leopold-Loeb case, "Swoon," and has barely been heard from since.

Back in the element of society true-crime, he's fashioned an eerie, unsettling, uniquely creepy experience.

The movie's period detail is just right, its glossy evocation of a privileged expatriate life is sumptuously seductive, its screenplay is a shattering morality tale and its two male leads could not be any better (especially Dillane, a dead ringer for the real Baekeland).

But 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.