Review of Safe, directed by Todd Haynes

I’ll never forget the first time I watched this movie. It was during the COVID-19 pandemic, I was in my final year of undergrad, and I had somehow convinced some important people to let me into two classes that were restricted only for film majors. Spoiler: I was not a film major.

So what ended up happening was I was the only person who wasn’t a “filmmaker” in those classes, which were Film Theory & Criticism and Introduction to Film. But these two courses ended up serving as a foundation for my future career that I now have today as a film critic (and de facto blogger, as I do this blog informally outside of my writing).

Anyways, Safe was one of the movies we watched in these courses. I’d forgotten about it for years until the other day (when writing this) I was scrolling through MUBI and saw that it was now an option to watch on the platform.

I ended up pressing play and was amazed that when it came to actually sitting to watch the movie after many years had passed, I remembered a lot of the smaller details despite the great length of time that had passed.

Let’s dive into the review then, shall we?

After a Los Angeles housewife begins to feel ill, her condition worsens and she is gaslit by the people around her.

Carol White has to have it all. From the sterile interiors of her vast Los Angeles home to the eighties and nineties style workout classes she attends with the other rich housewives of the area, life couldn’t be anything but perfect for her.

Except when it becomes so much worse quickly. The family decides to renovate their large home, and if it didn’t look empty before, it looks even emptier when Carol stands alone in it. But something else happens with this: she begins to get ill inside of the home.

Then it extends to outside the house. Her trigger seems to be chemicals, as when she goes out and does her daily routines, she starts experiencing symptoms that gradually get worse. For example, one of the key scenes showing this is when she’s driving on the town, and when she gets behind a truck, she ends up having a coughing attack.

The next key sign this is getting worse is when she’s at a baby shower with her friends, who aren’t as close to her. She starts having breathing problems in the middle of the event, deeply concerning everyone there.

As Carol starts to see doctors with her husband, she’s not really taken seriously about her symptoms. When she starts to go to groups where people discuss the same strange symptoms she has, she feels seen compared to the male doctors, and, quite frankly, her husband that are actively dismissing her concerns and think it’s all psychological.

The final straw happens when Carol enters her dry cleaner, which is getting fumigation, and ends up convulsing on the ground with blood coming out of her nose.

Even after that, her doctor is saying everything is normal with her. Carol decides to leave her family and home behind to go to a retreat that was mentioned previously in the community groups. When she is dropped off by her husband, she is surrounded by people experiencing the same things as her, but there’s still a pervasive sense of loneliness throughout this whole affair.

Lots of people are supported with oxygen masks, and there’s an igloo at the center of the compound where people who’ve gotten really bad live in. They’re pretty much sealed inside and end up living inside of this sterilized environment.

Eventually, Carol gets worse and isolates even more from the people around her, despite arriving and looking healthier than them. Her husband visits once, and after that, she is moved into the igloo. The film ends with her looking into the mirror and repeating that she loves herself, even if all of this has happened to her and she lost everything.

Overall Thoughts

If you love film, definitely take a chance to think about how Safe plays a role when it comes to the cinematic elements. When you notice the shots and blocking, and that’s just surface level, you’re going to be finding quite a few technical decisions that lends itself to the broader themes that the film is trying to tell us.

I think Safe is a deeply underrated movie though overall, and I wish more people have seen it—in my little corner of the world, no one has ever seen this movie and is willing to discuss it with me.

If you landed here and have somehow not seen it yet: go watch it. Knowing the plot only enhances the viewing experience.

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