SOL13: Movie Review—“Gloria Bell”

          I went to the movies yesterday with an old friend from out of town. We saw Gloria Bell, an independent film that’s a remake of a Chilean film by the same Chilean director, Sebastian Lelio. The film is about a divorced woman in her 50s with two grown children; she has a job and loves to dance, and the film follows her life for what looks like perhaps a year or less.

            While Julianne Moore’s performance is great—and I love that she wears glasses throughout, often even when she is dancing—the person she plays does things that at times seem mysterious to me. She meets a man at a disco—yes, there is a supposed to be a dance/bar in L.A. where middle-aged people go to dance to ’80s disco; does such a place exist?—they have sex and then a relationship, but when she takes him to meet her family, he feels out of place and leaves without saying anything, leaving her to worry about what happened. He doesn’t return her phone calls for a while, but then appears to tell her how angry he felt at being left out. You can see her thinking, “he is so not worth it,” and she gets into her car and drives away. He then stalks her via phone, calling incessantly, but after she sees a quirky street performer, she answers one of his calls, and the next scene is the two of them on an airplane, to Las Vegas. Why?

          She also drinks a lot, without that being an issue. As the widow of an alcoholic, I want to know whether this is a problem for her, whether others think it is a problem. Drinking a lot is not innocent behavior.

            And her upstairs neighbor, the son of her landlady, is either noisily abusing his partner, having a nervous breakdown, or both. She never calls the police, though she does call her landlady, but she doesn’t make it clear in the call what problems the neighbor seems to be exhibiting. Why not?

            There is still a lot to like in the film. If you like disco music, the soundtrack is great. Gloria has the kind of relationship some women have with their grown children who are still trying to keep a distance from their parents while continuing to be in touch. She has a job with responsibilities, but it’s not her passion; she seems to be an insurance claims person. And she revels in sex. It is so refreshing to see a middle-aged woman (Moore is 58) having sex and loving it—and finding at least one man who wants to have sex with her. In some ways, the movie is a collection of slices of life. 

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I’m participating in the 12th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 1 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!

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