Susan Granger’s review of “Gloria Bell” (A24)
Chilean writer/director Sebastian Lelio has remade his Spanish-language film “Gloria” (2014) for English-speaking audiences, skillfully shifting the location from Santiago to Los Angeles.
Middle-aged, near-sighted Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore) is a free-spirited, irrepressibly optimistic divorcee who works as an insurance adjuster during the day and spends her evenings drinking and dancing to ‘70s and ‘80s music at a local nightclub.
A joyous party animal, she tells friends: “When the world blows up, I hope I go dancing.”
Gloria is empathetic with a colleague (Barbara Sukowa) who’s fired just before she becomes eligible for her retirement allowance, and she puts up with an emotionally unbalanced neighbor’s hairless cat that often wanders into her modest, suburban apartment.
Naturally, Gloria is concerned about her adult children. Her daughter (Caren Pistorius) is leaving for Sweden to be with her surfer boyfriend, while the wife of her self-centered son (Michael Cera) has left for the desert to “find herself,” leaving him to care for their baby. Yet they’re relatively low-maintenance and self-sustaining.
Yet, underneath her frozen smile, Gloria’s lonely, so the relationship that’s closest to her heart is a romantic entanglement with Arnold (John Turturro), a shy, newly divorced, paintball-park owner whom she meets at the dance hall.
After a family dinner party and romantic trip to Caesar’s Place in Las Vegas, Gloria realizes Arnold’s inexplicably neurotic, particularly when it comes to his two grown, yet overtly dependent daughters and ex-wife who demand his constant attention.
Filmmaker Sebastian Lelio was far more successful delineating a transgender character study in his Oscar-winning “A Fantastic Woman” (2017). In this low-key narrative, Gloria emerges as enigmatically gullible, even though radiant Julianne Moore delivers an utterly natural, nuanced performance.
Natasha Braider’s cinematography oozes warm pastels, Mandy Moore’s choreography is fun, and the score consists of classic disco and vintage pop, like Paul McCartney’s “No More Lonely Nights,” Eric Carmen’s “All By Myself” and Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.”
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Gloria Bell” is a slow-paced, bittersweet 7, reviving Grammy-nominated pop singer Laura Branigan’s tituilar platinum 1982 hit.
