Hollywood has a rapacious appetite of remaking other country’s cinematic gems to cater to stateside Anglophone audience, but Chilean director Sebastián Lelio’s GLORIA BELL is not the case, firstly, this reimagining of his own GLORIA (2013) is directed by himself, secondly, the whole production comes to fruition by way of a “you dare, I dare” challenge between him and Julianne Moore, who is very much impressed by GLORIA and will only take on the role if Lelio returns to the director’s chair, so mutually connected through a deep feeling of camaraderie (epithets like woman-empowering, genderqueer, etc.), GLORIA BELL is here to stay.
For those who have watched GLORIA, GLORIA BELL is an almost entirely shot-by-shot remake which transposes the story from Santiago, Chile to L.A.. Moore plays our titular middle-aged divorcée, who is a habitué of sundry nightspots for patronage of certain age, she loves to dance and hang loose, not ashamed of seeking carnal knowledge when she feels up to it, which mirrors a realistic situation when one has independence in one hand, loneliness often materializes in another. When one night she sets her eyes on Arnold (Turturro) on the dance floor, some spark is kindled.
A relatively new divorcé (merely one year compared to Gloria’s 12), Arnold apparently has baggages to junk before he can totally commit to a new relationship, which causes embarrassment and discord during their inchoate romance. What is quite inconceivable is his penchant of taking a powder whenever he sees fit, regardless of the circumstances, and a free-spirited Gloria has to fall victim twice of his self-serving act (admittedly, attending a birthday party of your new girlfriend’s son, with her ex-husband also presented, is quite a daunting experience, but the second one in Las Vegas is plumb inexcusable), until a salvo of paintballs unleashes her suppressed wrath and Gloria is back dancing, unwinds and beams when the eponymous song GLORIA pipes up in a wedding.
The comparison of the two heroines is ineluctable, in GLORIA, Paulina García has a more aw-shucks front to dissimulate her insecurity and the hunger for physical intimacy, here Moore is more proactive and indeed, more poised to map out her no-holds-barred investment in Gloria’s entire emotional spectrum, and it goes without saying, a bespectacled Moore emanates greater sex appeal that eloquently validates that a woman’s charisma is irrelevant of her age, whether immersing herself under the becoming bisexual lights or bitterly realizing that her hankering is a castle in Spain (very literally), she is magnificent from stem to stern, in a rare showcase where she is the cynosure of almost every single shot. As for John Turturro, who also ups the ante in portraying Arnold in a more sympathetically halting and charming manner, albeit his immaturity and callousness, one can understand why a woman like Gloria falls for him (poems are the best aphrodisiac), all he needs is to grow a pair.
On the face of it, the film feels despondent, but Lelio intelligently inputs many occasions of female solidarity here, the interaction between Gloria and her co-worker Melinda (a cameo from the legendary German actress Barbara Sukowa), her friend Vicky (Wilson, Mrs. Tom Hanks), her daughter Anne (Pistorius), her mother Hillary (Taylor), she even shares a chummy conversation about weed with Fiona (Tripplehorn), the new wife of her ex, all contributes a sense of communion among women, they understand each other, the problem lies in the other sex (Sean Astin has a wordless cameo just to cop a feel and make out with Moore).
Still, one cannot dissipate the faintly ill feeling that Lelio opts for uniformity in terms of burrowing into a marvelous character for the second time, which precludes a rating higher than its original, that said, there is no way (at least for this reviewer) to resist a lip-synching Moore lives the best version of Gloria with a candid face and a brisk attitude, let up a bit, to all the Glorias in the world!
referential entries: Lelio’s GLORIA (2013, 7.8/10), A FANTASTIC WOMAN (2017, 7.7/10), DISOBEDIENCE (2017, 7.2/10).
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