Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

Gloria Bell Blu-ray Movie Review

Leaving Las Vegas.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 3, 2019

Chile’s Sebastián Lelio has joined the ranks of foreign directors remaking an effort of theirs originally in a foreign language for the United States (or perhaps more broadly the English speaking) market, with Gloria Bell Americanizing Lelio’s acclaimed 2013 opus Gloria. As supposedly modern as either Gloria and/or Gloria Bell might be thought of as being, especially in terms of providing a “female empowerment” angle for what a making of featurette on this disc repeatedly refers to as “a woman of a certain age” (I’m pretty “certain” that’s a euphemism for over 50 — at least), both films are perhaps a little bit more old fashioned than even Lelio would be prone to admit. The story of a single older woman trying to find love, or at least a fling or two, in a dance hall may in fact remind some older viewers of a long ago and much acclaimed made for television film from the 1970s, Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, but the whole angle of a steely female forging her own identity after her marriage breaks up may harken back to good old “women’s pictures” from the Golden Age of Hollywood like Mildred Pierce. Much as with the original Gloria, Gloria Bell is a showcase for its luminous star, with Julianne Moore doing fantastic work as a woman who loves to dance and who maybe (emphasis on maybe) has a shot at finding “true love” with a recently divorced man named Arnold (John Turturro) she meets at a bar one night. While there is definitely a through line to the screenplay (adapted from the original by Lelio, who also co-wrote that version, and Alice Johnson Boher), a lot of Gloria Bell tends to play out in a somewhat vignette driven way. That ultimately may deprive the film of a really definitive, satisfying conclusion, but it at least does offer the semblance of a catharsis once Gloria follows her own advice to Arnold, if obviously metaphorically, when she decides to “grow a pair” and not surrender to the vagaries of fate (and/or boorish males) without a fight.

As might be expected from a film documenting the club hopping exploits of a “woman of a certain age”, Gloria Bell is stuffed to the gills with tons of great source cues (including at least a couple which may strike some viewers/listeners as being too “on the nose”, including, predictably, "Gloria" itself). The first of these is Gloria Gaynor’s great disco remake of Clifton Davis’ “Never Can Say Goodbye”, which turns out to be a kind of ironic presaging commentary on one particular aspect of what becomes the central relationship of the film, that between Gloria and maybe/maybe not new main squeeze Arnold. But before the film gets to that point, there are a series of unrelated vignettes which quickly detail Gloria’s life as a single woman, working at an insurance company while also trying to keep track of her two adult children. Son Peter (Michael Cera) seems to be in throes of some relationship difficulties himself, with the mother of his newborn son off on some excursion to “find herself” in the desert. Daughter Anne (Caren Pistorius) seems to have things at least a little more together, but that includes chasing after a Swedish boyfriend who is a “big wave” enthusiast and who spends his days traveling to various exotic locations to surf. That ultimately leads to Anne leaving to pursue him, a decision which has obvious emotional consequences for Gloria and, later, Gloria’s ex-husband Dustin (Brad Garrett).

Gloria Bell ultimately relies on an almost willful inability on the part of its two focal characters to discuss things in a rational manner, which may in fact be “realistic”, but which tends to push the bounds of believability here, especially with a final sight gag involving Arnold’s ex-wife and daughters (whom he is having a problem distancing himself from) that was admittedly funny but which frankly robbed the moment of some of its cathartic potential. The film in fact tends to travel and retravel the same emotional route several times, with Arnold first making a commitment and then backing out, until Gloria takes matters into her own hands. The climax of this on again, off again aspect takes place during a supposedly carefree vacation to Las Vegas, where Arnold's spinelessness and Gloria's Id don't make for an especially good "couple". There are some fantastically winning scenes here, and Moore and Turturro are engaging in their roles, but there’s a kind of haphazard aimlessness at times to the story, with several supporting characters (including, frankly, Gloria’s kids and her mom, played by the great Holland Taylor) who just kind of show up willy-nilly, say a few lines, and then are never heard from again.

As such, Gloria Bell may be best appreciated as a character (or characters) study, giving wonderful opportunities for a gifted cast that also includes Rita Wilson, Sean Astin and Jean Tripplehorn. The film actually traverses both fraught dramatic moments and some downright silly comedy (especially after Gloria starts experimenting with pot), but there are all sorts of subtextual items here that aren’t really explored very fully, including what might have been a promising dialectic between Gloria’s obviously liberal minded friends and former marine and (one assumes by his hobbies) staunch NRA supporter Arnold. Little snippets are given over to passing debates in this regard, but Lelio seems more intent on providing a series of (mis?)adventures for Gloria to weather rather than poking around the nooks and crannies of any given storyline.

Gloria Bell Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Gloria is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. The IMDb is once again fairly nondescript in providing much technical data on the shoot, but a bit of internet digging uncovered the fact that cinematographer Natasha Braier shot with Arri Alexas, and I'm once again assuming things were finished at a 2K DI. Among the datapoints I dug up in background research on the film was this winning interview with Braier, where she waxes poetic about her love affair with light, which is kind of ironic given the kind of hazy, strobe lit environments in which Gloria regularly finds herself. That said, I personally was kind of nicely surprised by how strongly detail levels managed to "poke" through some of the dimly lit miasma of various club scenes. While fine detail can take momentary dips in some of these moments, even that is often commendably precise looking often in some pretty low light environments. There are other, more brightly lit, sequences that also have kind of effulgent, glowing backlit properties that can tend to obscure the imagery slightly (see screenshot 13), but on the whole the more "normally" lit sequences offer robust detail levels and and an appealing if not overly vivid palette. I noticed a couple of very brief and transitory moments of banding in a couple of fades.

Gloria Bell Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Gloria's source cue stuffed soundtrack is a joy to listen to via its DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 presentation, with typically excellent immersion offered in the several crowded club and/or bar scenes, where both the thumping music and chatter of the masses provides quite a bit of surround activity. Other outdoor moments, including a sequence with Gloria and Arnold at a shooting range, also offer some good punches of low register energy while also providing smart placement of ambient environmental sounds. Dialogue is always presented cleanly and clearly on this problem free track.

Gloria Bell Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Sebastián Lelio


• An Extraordinary Ordinary Woman: Making Gloria Bell (1080p; 10:30) is kind of humorously mislabeled on the Supplements submenu as "only" An Extraordinary Woman , but one way or the other this is a decent EPK with short interview snippets with Moore, Turturro, Lelio and others.

Gloria Bell Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

A number of my film freak friends who know I review Lionsgate releases for this site contacted me during Gloria Bell's theatrical run, telling me how much I was going to love it. Well, frankly, I liked Gloria Bell quite a bit, a whole lot, in fact, but I didn't outright love it. It's an incredible showcase for the entire cast, chiefly of course Moore and Turturro, but I felt that whole (and in some cases significant) plot lines were left dangling or under explored. The film still has some absolutely top notch moments, and there's a lived in feeling to these characters that is quite believable. Technical merits are solid, and with caveats noted, Gloria Bell comes Recommended.