JULIANNE MOORE RADIANT IN MIDLIFE CHARACTER STUDY
NEW YORK— Everyone is vanishing around Julianne Moore’s title character in Sebastian Lelio’s “Gloria Bell.” The disappearances don’t come with blood-curdling shrieks or thundering score cues, but with the humdrum ebb of middle age. People just move away or recede from view.
Gloria is a divorced, 50something Los Angeles insurance agent by day and dances the disco at a club by night. Her son, Peter ( Michael Cera), is caring for a newborn, while his wife is away somewhere in the desert “finding herself.”
Her daughter, Anne (Caren Pistorius), has an extreme surfer boyfriend chasing waves abroad, and she might join him soon. Gloria’s closest colleague at work is sent packing. And, most of all, her promising new boyfriend Arnold (John Turturro) has a funny habit of disappearing every time his ex-wife calls.
Just about the only one who’s consistently there for Gloria is a hairless cat that keeps turning up in her apartment.
“Gloria Bell” isn’t a dour midlife character study, but a warmly affectionate one, in large part due to Moore’s radiant, lived-in performance as a woman committed to self-renewal.
The film is an English-language remake of Lelio’s own 2013 drama “Gloria,” which starred Paulina Garcia in the lead role, and this version is frequently a shot-for-shot, linefor-line recreation. Still, “Gloria” feels light and spontaneous.
In between the two “Gloria” movies, the Chilean filmmaker made the Oscar-winning “A Fantastic Woman,” about a transgender woman (Daniela Vega) in Santiago, and his English-language debut, “Disobedience,” a tale of forbidden love with Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams.
He has made a specialty of graceful and earnest femaleled films that make up for their lack of dramatics with a rare sensitivity.
With a dreamlike sheen, the film follows Gloria through her modest days where any disappointments or slights are usually worked out at the nightclub.
“When the world blows up, I hope I go down dancing,” Gloria says brightly to friends.
Gloria’s world isn’t imploding, but it’s not exactly soaring, either. Her life is full of impermanent connections and stabs at self-improvement. But she is blessedly undaunted, like a personification of the uplifting spirit of the Laura Branigan anthem “Gloria.”
In Los Angeles traffic in her car, she belts out ’80s songs. This is as natural as Julianne Moore has ever been, even if her Gloria feels too secure for us to ever fear much for her future.—