Safe

REVIEW
Restrained but emotionally involving, this is a harrowing tale of a woman who physically suffers at the hands of "progress." The deceptively simple story follows Carol White (the remarkable Moore), an out-of-touch, Stepford Wife-like Southern California housewife who, despite being buffeted by a wealth of material comforts and a loving husband, finds her body slowly ravaged by allergic reactions to everyday chemicals, fragrances and fumes. This transforms her seemingly protected upper-middle-class existence into a terror of everyday life. Her doctors cannot find anything physically wrong with her, so Carol sets off to New Mexico for answers and a cure at a New Age-style spa/convalescence resort. With a bold yet austere visual style, Haynes chillingly explores suburban complacency and existential alienation and its ensuing lack of self-worth. Ultimately, Safe is anything but and is thought-provoking and quietly disturbing.