Director Sebastián Lelio reprises his Chilean cinematic success GLORIA, and with the help of Alice Johnson Boher's adaptation of his own screenplay, gives us GLORIA BELL.
The story is as complex in psychological insights as it is simple in storyline. Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore) is divorced, alone, working a boring insurance job, with children growing away, ad finds herself frequenting dance clubs/bars. She hungers for romance and almost accidentally finds it in divorced Arnold (John Turturro). The manner in which they court is at once tentative and aggressive: Arnold feels compelled to 'be there' for his two grown unemployed girls and allows that situation to alter his attention to Gloria, and Gloria wants it all. In an on again off again romance the problems of loneliness and aging take focus, and while the story is rather upbeat in stagecraft and flamboyant in sex scenes, the undertone is sad.
The cast includes actors/actresses who are in the age category the film addresses - Holland Taylor, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Rita Wilson, Brad Garrett, Chris Mulkey - as well as some fine young cast members. The story focuses on Los Angeles nightclubs and Las Vegas glitz and the action is swift and well focused, especially by Julianne Moore, who proves she can inhabit this sad role credibly, enhancing the impact of the aging and lonely but beautiful single woman stance. A comedy it isn't, but the film offers insight into a realm of the population who continue to seek elusive love.
