Safe (1995)
Set in an affluent neighbourhood of the San Fernando Valley in 1987, the film recounts the life of a seemingly unremarkable homemaker, Carol White who develops multiple chemical sensitivity.
Cast and Information
Directed By: Todd Haynes
Written By: Todd Haynes
Starring: Xander Berkeley, Beth Grant, Julianne Moore, Dean Norris, Peter Friedman, Jessica Harper, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Jodie Markell, Susan Norman, Mary Carver, Ronnie Farer, Julie Burgess
Genres: Drama, Suspense/Thriller, Horror
Where to Stream
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Safe belongs to 56 collections
1. 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (collaborative: moderated by kozan26 - 234 stars)
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Browse the full list of collections
| Stars | User | Rating | |
| 12 |  |
MartinTeller | 96 98th |
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Comic but not a comedy, dramatic but not a drama, mysterious but not a mystery, horrifying but not horror. It's an unclassifiable enigmatic mindfuck. Safe never takes aim at a clear villain, simultaneously indicting pollution, shallow pop psychology, wishy-washy cults, isolationism, the sterility of modern society and the lack of any true personal connections. And it's all executed with the most remarkable restraint. A haunting, entrancing look at the disintegration of a fragile identity.
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| 6 |  |
KAH | 3 74th |
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A satirical drama with horror-like moments and some humor of the blackest kind.. Safe isn't easy to categorize. The cause of anxiety in the characters can be pretty much anything, and the point seems to be how fragile and easily influenced our mind and identity can be, as well as some obvious comments on the postmodern society. It loses momentum from time to time, but has some really tense scenes, like when the camera slowly moves closer to Moore, watching her break down. It's almost unbearable.
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| 6 |  |
loc42 | 65 47th |
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Safe is a stylistically cold and distanced study of the clinical alienation that comes with wealth and technologic progress. Carol starts to question her affluent and banal housewife life, feeling depressed and anxious. Yet her world is so penetrated by values of hygiene, order, and conservative morality that she can't even accept that hers is an emotional yearning. In that sense, this a bleak and pessimistic account of vanishing humanity in our techno scientific class societies. Interesting.
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| 5 |  |
Yiannos | 60 47th |
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An odd mix of Cronenbergian style body horror and Antonioni like artistry, Safe was an unusually heady American 'indie' film for its time that traded in fashionable irony for complete seriousness. The cold clinical tone is eerily precise: it traps Carol/Moore within the frame, highlighting her isolation, powerlessness and increasing sense of dislocation. It's a moody urban dramatic 'horror' about the problems of modern living, but it bites off more than it can chew and overstays its welcome.
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| 4 |  |
lockstock | 25 11th |
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kut saaie film voor depri wijve en ik moet da dan t8 geve pff...cuculiza: "A genuine horror film disguised as a psycho drama. And it's truly terrifying." hahaha wa ne ziiieeeevereir
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| 3 |  |
Suture Self | 9 91st |
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The driving question in Safe is, "What is it that really ails Carol?" What's so insidious about this question is that it appears to be unanswerable. It might be a metaphysical question, but the revulsions of her body make us believe it's something more, something tangible. It might be an empirical question, but the limits of science prove to be inadequate; medicine and psychology fails her. Yet, this invisible agony pops up everywhere; in Carol, in you, in me. The horror is in not knowing why.
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| 3 |  |
feublo | 88 83rd |
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Disturbing to say the least, the privileged individual that becomes troubled and obsessed with their ailments to the point of no return, is just depressing.
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| 2 |  |
Alex Watkins | 5 91st |
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A fascinating portrait of paranoia, modernity, and the yearning for acceptance. Moore is one of my favorite actresses, and she's great as usual. I love Hayne's restrained direction - the subtle camerawork, unnerving soundtrack and use of muted colors in particular - and the way the film defies classification. That defiance makes it a bit hard to grasp, but I have a feeling it will reward repeat viewings. A very impressive film.
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| 2 |  |
twincinema | 85 85th |
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A Lynchian horror film if Lynch cared about a narrative that made sense.
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| 2 |  |
WWallce4prez | 90 95th |
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There is a lot to be thankful for when it comes to Todd Haynes, but two reasons, in particular, come to mind with Safe: Julianne Moore and anxiety. The craft displayed in pasting literal anxiety onto the screen is mesmerizing. Moore is fantastic in her first leading role as she chews the screen with her empty stares and nervous smiles.
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| 2 |  |
cherrorist | 50 23rd |
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Starts off good, but grows boring after 45 minutes, tedious after an hour or so, and the true horror comes from realizing you've wasted two hours of your life to something this pointless. Suspense comes from waiting for it to end, drama from explaining your spouse it was suggested by Criticker, and Criticker rarely misses. Moore's great, though, she's a great actress.
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| 2 |  |
deaddilly | 90 94th |
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Dangerous material.
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| 2 |  |
juntakinte99 | 75 49th |
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I'd heard this described as "Julianne Moore is allergic to everything"; making me envision The Housewife in the Bubble. That poor marketing doesn't tell you that this is a dark psychological drama on Reagan era suburban fears of AIDS, crime, and pollution. The cult sequences are so realistic they approach docudrama. I'm okay with the ambiguity of the disease being psychological, environmental, or a mix. Yet, I wish the ending didn't seem as though the film merely stopped. Still, recommended.
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| 1 |  |
CCLZA | 80 77th |
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A genuine horror film disguised as a psycho drama. And it's truly terrifying.
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| 1 |  |
Moribunny | 90 97th |
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A haunting movie. The height of their career for everyone involved.
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| 1 |  |
djross | 70 76th |
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Existential dread, social alienation, libidinal depletion and environmental contamination produce a thoroughly auto-immune situation, ripe for exploitation by the cults of self-help. All the elements are in place, and the film does generate an unsettling and uncanny mood, but the flatness of the presentation combined with the lack of events in the second half mean that the impact is diluted somewhat. May be one that produces a delayed response, seeming in retrospect to increase in significance.
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| 1 |  |
Cowman | 55 19th |
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Some nice images and exactly one great wordplay joke, but I didn't really connect to any of it. Especially second half is just sitting around in a desert camp.
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| 1 |  |
caiman | 82 68th |
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This movie has a subtle creepiness to it that I have a hard time pinpointing. Much like Polanski with Repulsion, Tony Haynes does a commendable job of making us feel that something is just off without really explaining what or why. Moore's great performance drives this feeling home.
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| 1 |  |
frederic_g54 | 6 35th |
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More substantive in its less than flattering depiction of upper class pomposity than in its portrait of a dejected young woman struggling with issues of self-identity. Especially since the latter continually teeters on the verge of self-parody to the point where it becomes unintentionally hilarious - if not hopelessly misguided. Moore gives a great turn, however.
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| 1 |  |
amerigo | 70 26th |
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A vacuous movie about vacuous yuppies saying nothing new. It'd be one thing if there was some enjoyment out of watching this film (there is none) or there was some greater insight to be learnt from experiencing this art piece, but no it just drones on over the same themes that have been rehashed over and over since Kate Chopin wrote The Awakening in 1899.
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| 1 |  |
JakeAesthete | 95 95th |
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Undoubtably Haynes' greatest achievement and his one film where the themes and concepts he chooses to explore blend seamlessly into the compelling narrative he frames them in. Yes there are many ideas here (enough that many films would have merely chosen one of them to focus on, and many have, far more shallowly than here), but it is not only a film about suburban anomie, pollution, AIDS, or phony New Age self-help gurus. It's about all these things, and much more.
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| 1 |  |
Vandelay1 | 70 75th |
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good movie
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| 1 |  |
constantine | 90 95th |
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A superb and original thriller by Todd Haynes that you can't see often.
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| 1 |  |
Calexico | 90 91st |
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Impeccably dark and creepy. Great performance by Julianne Moore. Great soundtrack too.
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| 1 |  |
fenixdown | 82 83rd |
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Julianne Moore gets all crazy because of the chemicals.
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| 1 |  |
wetwillies | 100 98th |
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This is a film that touches on so many of the themes and ideas that I find fascinating in both cinema and life and does so in a way that is consistently haunting and unnerving. Julianne Moore also gives one of her very best performances.
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| 1 |  |
Syntheseizur | 85 83rd |
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Haynes wrings terror out of the mundanity of sterile, upper class suburbia during the superficial '80s in a tale about the alienation of bourgeois privilege and the need for security from uncertainty as he frames the characters in their domestic spaces. The film anticipates the modern obsession with holistic medicine and anti-science conspiracies, but it's also an investigation into a uniquely-American brand of female objectification, capitalist claustrophobia, and the associated anxieties.
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| 1 |  |
closedmouth | 100 98th |
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I've never felt more dirty or repulsed while watching a film. The final image makes my skin crawl.
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| 1 |  |
glumpy_99 | 77 51st |
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Creepy, eerie drama/social commentary has many fascinating things to say about pollution and (unexpectedly) cultists masquerading as self-help -- "pass your valuables to the front" a sickening line on 2nd watch -- marked by a brilliantly understated performance from Moore, and terrifying ones by McGregor-Stewart and Friedman as the self-help gurus, who's dangerous rationales are all too persuasive. A neccesary clinical tone keeps a degree of distance... [Full Review]
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| 1 | xacviant | 67 21st |
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I'm not sure how I feel about SAFE. Maybe I read too much about it beforehand, maybe I was too tired, maybe I just wasn't in the mood--but it really didn't do much for me. It seemed like the themes were put across too obviously, the only real touch of mystery coming at the very end. Also (and this may have been my fatigue), the final third basically grins to a halt. Julianne Moore is quite good and it's decently well-directed (and makes some excellent use of sound)...but I wasn't impressed.
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| 1 |  |
obtiosov | 55 16th |
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The first of many movies in which Julianne Moore is desperate, unsafe and insecure.
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| 1 |  |
Dumptruk4Lif | 100 97th |
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A masterwork in dread filled atmosphere and sound design, with a message that works both as a critique of the alienating society we live in, and in turn, people's alienation from each other, and vice versa. A horror movie more astute than many of the genre's best, focusing on a subject matter that is even more relevant today, and all too closely relatable in both its sense of isolation and its questioning of reality.
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| 1 |  |
LarsVonTrier | 3 72nd |
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Very unique, thought provoking. Julianne Moore shines here.
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| 1 |  |
Stigma&Style | 85 93rd |
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Low-budget Todd Haynes at his best.
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| 1 |  |
NathanBates | 60 34th |
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A commentary on chemical sensitivity and mental illness that starts with an almost-sleepwalking Carol and the banality of life. It felt like it didn't push far enough on its main topics, never mind the additional ones introduced (like the self-help guru, or the random man on the cover who's in the movie maybe ten seconds). Throughout, I couldn't help feeling "first world problems" even though I suffer from "sensitivity to smells" as well. Strong performance by Moore.
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| 1 | bigboy_tony | 85 79th |
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the soundtrack is HOT julianne moore is HOT the cinematography is TASTEFUL, need i say more? run, don't walk, to see this hidden gem of a film, folks. but seriously though, folks, a new mutant has entered the cadre of deformed beauties in my favourite genre, 'psychological disintegration'.
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| Average Percentile 64.28% from 901 Ratings |  |