Savage Grace

By Robbie Collin

JUST what we all wanted to fill these balmy summer days.

A tedious biopic about some mad old bat who married into the Bakelite plastic dynasty.

Who are Bakelite by trade, and Bakelite by nature too, if this film’s anything to go by—cos the characters are about as full of life as a plastic telephone.

Barbara Baekeland (Julianne Moore) is a loud-mouthed social climber who happily tells a dinner party about her millionaire explorer husband: “Give him a dirt road and he’ll go up it.” (Could’ve waited until after pudding, love.)

The plot centres on the lead-up to her murder, with her son Tony (Eddie Redmayne) on voiceover duties. After Dad’s affair with Tony’s girlfriend, mother and son get uncomfortably close, building to an incest scene that somehow manages to be revolting AND boring.

Wishes it was: a modern-day Greek tragedy. Actually is: Jeremy Kyle for smug t**ts.