This is Julianne Moore’s movie all the way. She is on screen every minute dancing through middle-age dating in the 90’s. The Academy award winner (Still Alice, The Hunger Games, Wonderstruck) is so human and relatable as a divorcée who works in an insurance office by day and goes to dance clubs by night to let loose. You follow her daily routine into her nightly passion.
You’ll fall in love with her as she’s driving around town singing along to love songs on the radio, including Total Eclipse of the Heart, No More Lonely Nights. She knows every word as she belts out with abandon. (Haven’t we all done that?) But it’s when she hits a dance club that you know she’s in her element. Comfortable, yet aloof, she lets her dance partners feel special and she does, too.
Chilean Director Sebastián Lelio (Disobedience), won an Oscar last year for Best Foreign film for A Fantastic Woman. Gloria Bell is an English-language remake, nearly scene-for-scene, of his 2013 foreign film Gloria that was so well-received. The location changes from Santiago, Chile to Los Angeles, but nothing is lost in translation.
Both feature a single woman in her 50’s with grown children still looking to live and have fun however they can. Moore is fun to watch awkwardly trying yoga trying to keep up with the moves as if she knows what she’s doing. You’ll laugh watching her in a pile of female friends at a laughing class. Moore sparkles and the laughter is contagious. She’s also funny dealing with the strange looking hairless cat that suddenly and constantly pops up in her apartment.
But her routine changes when she meets tall, dark, brooding, middle-aged Arnold (John Turturro) on the dance floor. Sparks start to smolder under the changing colored lights reacting to the tempo of the music. Moore admits she’s not a dancer and had to take lessons for the role. And Turturro, who loves to dance, had to help teach her how to loosen up. It works.
Not only is he a great dancer, but plays sexy with a sensitive side. In a very sweet scene, Lelio has Turturro reading Gloria a poem, going back and forth with the camera as she hangs on every word. Their love and appreciation for each other is obviously growing. Lelio also shown them on dating adventures including paint ball and you feel Gloria’s child like joy giggling on a big bouncy swing.They are also very cute, warm and funny together. But the scenes of Gloria and Arnold in bed making mad passionate love, (once he’s taken the man girdle off), show that it can be steamy and sexy at any age.
You can’t help but be happy for them until real life gets in the way. The film could have easily been overly melodramatic, but, instead, Lelio realistically plays off the ups and downs of trying to juggle family with their romantic relationship. It can be serious and sad, as when Gloria introduces Arnold to her ex-husband and his wife played by Brad Garrett and Jeanne Tripplehorn.
But both Gloria and Arnold have baggage. Gloria’s sheepish son (Michael Cera) is married to a woman who takes off to parts unknown leaving he and their baby behind. Gloria is close with her daughter, but she is going off to live with her champion Wave-surfer boyfriend in Sweden. Gloria, once again, has to adjust .
Arnold is newer to the dating game and is on call for his ex-wife and two daughters who play on guilt to the hilt to get his attention and money. Not a good combo. Gloria’s problems aren’t as much of a deal breaker for the relationship as Arnold’s. And we cheered when she finally tells him to stand up to his girls and “Grow a pair.” Good line.
Moore is radiant in this film. Lelio develops both Gloria and Arnold so you really get to know them and what makes them tick. In the process of navigating this new relationship, Gloria gets to know herself better. And Arnold gets a reality check, too. Turturro runs the gamut of emotions from sensitive and caring to frantically screwed up as poor Arnold.
This film shines a spotlight on self awareness and relationships at any age and the director has translated the story well. He also lets his actors put everything out there. Lelio shows Gloria beaten down by the sad ending of her relationship with Arnold, but certainly not for ever. The last scene is euphoric. Reluctant at first, Lelio shows Gloria get revved up in an extremely long scene to capture film off doing what she does best to her own tune. Moore is such an expressive and captivating presence throughout this film, that even though she swears she’s no dancer, she sure fooled us.
A 24 102 minutes R
