Suburban life is under attack in Todd Haynes’ breakthrough 1995 feature, Safe. When a Los Angeles housewife, Carol White (Julianne Moore), becomes mysteriously allergic to her surroundings, she begins a frightening journey into the New Mexico desert, desperately seeking answers at a wellness retreat. As Carol is instructed in the ways of self-help and positive thinking, just how far can she hold on to her identity? Will she ever become truly ‘safe’?

Hailed by The Village Voice as the Best Film of the 1990s, Safe is a fascinating exploration of the fragility of late-century Americana. It couples the ambient dread of Ed Tomney’s drone-filled score with Alex Neponiaschy’s cinematographic reflection of stark sterility of late-’80s Reaganite America. Continuing a concern with authenticity first sketched in his experimental Barbie doll-clad short Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987) and his New Queer cinematic feature Poison (1991), Todd Haynes captures both complacency and the guttural manifestations of dislocation and pain. While known for Velvet Goldmine (1998) and, more recently, May December (2023), it is with Safe that Haynes provides a dark mirror of mainstream society’s treatment of the AIDS crisis, while also capturing the perennial neglect paid to women’s health and the damaging effects of wellness culture. It adds up to a terrifying skewering of the middle-class American experience, with continual relevance in today’s fractious world.

F-Rated: Starring Julianne Moore

Screening as part of the Young Programmers' Trouble in Suburbia season.

Director Todd Haynes
Year 1995
Duration 1h 58m
Language English
Cast Julianne Moore, Peter Friedman, Xander Berkeley