The Sad Rich White People Movie is one of my favourite genres, and indeed the white people in this English-language remake of Danish film-maker’s Susanne Bier’s 2006 tearjerker are very sad and very rich. Its drama takes place between a lavish country mansion in upstate New York and a five-star hotel in Manhattan. Billy Crudup plays a famous sculptor whose wife, Theresa ( Julianne Moore), has an array of shoes that are uncomfortable, impractical and completely fabulous.
Michelle Williams’s free-spirited Isabel, on the other hand, will take any opportunity to kick off her sandals. She runs an orphanage in India and has been sent to New York to secure $2m of funding. If all goes to plan, Theresa will give it to her. Except, as is revealed at Theresa’s daughter’s wedding, Isabel has an existing connection to the family.
The rest is difficult to explain without spoiling it. What I can say is that this story of motherhood and moral conundrums, of privilege and philanthropy and “worthy causes” is one whose dramatic twists and soapy reveals feel at odds with the cultivated tone of serious, muted elegance. “There are people with money and principles,” insists Moore; Williams wears an expression that suggests she’s about to be sick.
