It’s an odd entry in the archives because it’s almost the same screenplay as Lelio’s 2013 film Gloria. It makes me think of Haneke’s Funny Games—a foreign-language remake here in English by the same auteur. The main difference here is that from 2013 to 2018 Lelio has improved as a visual director and this 2018 film, Gloria Bell, makes a great visual pairing with Lelio’s best film (2017’s A Fantastic Woman) with the strong use of neon color and lighting. The story of survival—the narrative—is shared with all three films
The formal elements present in the 2013 film are here—it’s a repetition (not as calculated like WKW) of Gloria in the car singing along (instead of Chilean music they go with 70’s and 80’s soft rock or disco which is a great choice), dancing in the club (neons galore), smoking, her loud neighbor annoying her in the house, the phone ringing, cat
To the point about the use of neon and color, their escape date here is to Vegas, I love the escalator shot with the lighting (Lelio doesn’t hold this nearly long enough actually)- these are solely in the 2018 version
the 360 drunk shot, the closing shot of her choosing to continue to dance—all of these are in the 2013 version
Julianne Moore—one of the greats- is good here- as is John Turturro—but I do think the two leads are a little stronger in the 2013 film
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