Plot Summary

In his long-awaited follow-up to 1992’s Swoon, Tom Kalin returns to a true crime story; this time it’s a society murder that rattled the world on both sides of the Atlantic. Based on the book by Natalie Robins and Steven M.L. Aronson, Savage Grace tells the story of Barbara Daly (Julianne Moore), a former actress who married above her class to become the wife of Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), heir to a plastics fortune. The Baekelands crisscross the globe from New York to Paris to Cadaques to London, savagely grasping for the good life. The birth of their only child, Tony, pushes their already rocky marriage over the cliff. As the years pass, Brooks looks upon Tony, who is homosexual, with little more than disdain. And the groundwork for tragedy is laid as Barbara, scorned by her husband, does everything in her power to own her son.