Chilean director Sebastian Lelio’s
English-language remake of his own breakout 2013 dramedy “Gloria,” the delicate
and funny “Gloria Bell” offers a bittersweet portrait of life and love in
middle age. Anchored by Julianne Moore’s lovely, un-showy lead performance, the
film follows the vibrant, 50-something Gloria as she embarks on a new romance
on her way to finding a renewed sense of joy and lust for life.
With
oversized glasses and an easy laugh, Gloria is sweet-natured, and occasionally
a bit short-tempered. She has a stable, if unfulfilling management job at an
insurance office. But more than anything she loves to dance, frequenting a singles
night club when she feels the urge to cut loose. It’s there that she meets
fellow divorcee Arnold (John Turturro), a somewhat
reserved military vet. After a lovely night together, Arnold asks to see her
again; suddenly and quite unexpectedly, Gloria finds herself entering the
unfamiliar territory of late-in-life dating.
The director
lends the film his European sensibility; not much happens in “Gloria Bell” and
plot comes secondary as Lelio, and co-writer Alice
Johnson Boher, give us a sense of Gloria’s life in
quick, broad strokes. She has her two grown children (Michael Cera and Caren Pistorius) with whom she has a loving but
somewhat distant relationship, a self-sufficient mother (the always welcome
Holland Taylor), and a relatively friendly connection to her ex-husband (Brad
Garrett), who she’s been divorced from for more than a decade.
Gloria has
some anxieties about getting older, but she has a full life even before she
begins seeing Arnold. Her main troubles are a growing concern for her mentally
ill upstairs neighbor, and a hairless cat that inexplicably manages to sneak
its way into her apartment every day.
The romance
between Gloria and Arnold eventually faces some speed bumps, largely arising
from his two emotionally- and financially-needy daughters, who have a dependent
relationship with their father — one that goes both ways more than he’d care to
admit. He also has a terrible tendency to let his insecurities get the best of
him.
Lelio won an Oscar for his “A Fantastic Woman,” and his latest
shares similarities to that story of a woman who takes a lot of shit before
coming out the other side even stronger than before. Along with those films and
last year’s “Disobedience,” the filmmaker has a knack for compelling stories of
women who possess more inner strength than the world likes to gives them credit
for.
A showcase
for the wonderful Julianne Moore, “Gloria Bell” is a character study of a
person we seldom get to see in the movies these days (unless she’s playing a
commander or scientist in a Marvel movie): a confident woman over 50. Lelio’s film lets us watch her face down setbacks with
grace and dignity, on its way to a joyous ending that remind us, no matter what
life may toss your way, sometimes all you can do is keep on dancing.
This article appears in Mar 20-26, 2019.
