**

One of those films I keep going back to yearly - beautiful. Always puts a smile on my face - it's an authentic film, it shows society up in a really honest way through this family and their journey. Very well made film - beautiful cinematography - great casting. I'm grateful for films like Little Miss Sunshine - they don't come around so often.

I haven't seen a film that deals with the subject of sensitivity and alienation and identity in the way that Safe does. Although this film is based on an upper-class American family - I do feel that the underlying core of the film is universal. The main character has such a painfully small sense of self, and it shifts through the film, she's almost not there. This film highlights the difference between reality and the superficial - what a person can do naturally, and what is expected of them to be seen as normal. Julianne Moore highlights this so well with her child-like voice and almost-not-there blending in quality. The film has some beautiful cinematography and a soundtrack that is very emotive. This film is described as "a horror film of the soul" and I would agree with that. That sense of being an alien in a toxic environment that the majority of people can tolerate and desire. Going to doctors and psychiatrists, but there isn't a cure, no help is available. Is it psychological toxins, or physical toxins in the environment? That sense of loneliness and the unknown is very palpable in this film. Is Julianne Moore's character becoming ill due to her environment, or more aware of her environment - or both? Going from her privileged but quite empty life in society, to then becoming a social outcast and entering the environmental group that has a cultish quality. Realising that even in this chemically sensitive place, she can't escape the fumes of a nearby road. As she moves deeper into the cult, she moves further away from her family. The ending scenes are moving, where she cannot hug her husband due to his smell - more isolated than ever. Staring at herself in the mirror trying to love herself, but living in a cabin that just looks so depressing with an oxygen tank to breathe through. Is this the start of self-loving, or has she been brainwashed? Who is she really? And what is the real cause of her problems? I haven't seen a film like this before, and I am grateful having watched it - it's very moving and complex.