User Reviews

This is a somewhat subtle and understated film about a middle aged woman living in the LA, who expresses herself via visits to the local dance/nights clubs, which lead to a number of relationships. It may make you think about how society judges and reacts to people who don't have too much to tie themselves down to. It features a good performance from Julianne Moore as the titular character and I enjoyed the music played in certain scenes - there are some decent disco tunes played, for one. I think this film is good from a feminist point of view, depicting a woman who is quite determined to live life her way. It seemed perhaps a little slow plot wise and possibly somewhat directionless maybe, though that may be being a bit harsh but otherwise I would gladly recommend this film. I think it's good that Hollywood are depicting such tales.

Unfortunately, I think Gloria Bell has fallen victim to audiences going in expecting one thing, and the film actually being something else (in reference to its 45% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes). I'm not sure how it was marketed when it first came out, but before I started watching it on my TV I noticed that it was labeled as a romantic comedy. Gloria Bell is not a romantic comedy. It's a realistic portrayal of a middle-aged woman's search for romance. It's a very up-and-down story that really highlights how hard it can be to find something that doesn't have any hang ups around middle-age. There is little-to-no humor here, so I'm not quite sure why it has been stuck in that category, but it is a darn good film.

Julianne Moore is a goddamn national treasure. Her character is the heart and soul of this picture and she is just so easy to root for. The pacing of this film is much more sporadic than I was expecting but I really just loved spending time with this character so it didn’t bother me. The film started to lose me a little in the third act but it could’ve been Gloria dancing the whole time and I’d be satisfied.
Grade: B-

One of those strange cases in which the American remake does not **** but still doesn't live up to the original and don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film and Julianne Moore adds another good character to her resume, nevertheless I prefer the original above all.

(Mauro Lanari) A single scene sums up the film: a skeleton-shaped marionette dances as the protagonist attends the show and identifies with it. Daily ménage of an over fifty-year-old too normal to interest those who do not experience her own kind of problems, while she enchants those who find themselves in her (for example Julianne Moore, omnipresent as an actress and executive producer). A woman who faces what remains for her to live with a survival strategy devoid of significant purposes. Pretty squalid.

While I liked Gloria Bell, the (current) aggregate rating of 80 seems rather high. I'm a Julianne Moore fan (of course) and Turturro is excellent. There are surprising cameos but they are brief. The LA photography is bland. Director and photographer probably wanted to avoid 'iconic' LA locations, but until a third of the way thru I wasn't sure where it was. There's a valid feminist angle in main character being a 50-something woman. I just think this is not a film I'll remember....

Loved it! I thought she did a great job!! Watched it twice!! ️️️

Very strong performance from Julianne Moore per usual but unfortunately the movie was a little boring? It also feels quite watered down from the original.

Overall a very good but depressing movie. Many critics did not see it this way. What I found rather sad was not the end result but rather the process that the protagonist goes thru. If you are searching for romance this is not so encouraging. Also the male lead is never really explained enough. Clearly something is up with him but never clear what.

abslu stnning film such a classic and such a story line thank you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The bell has been rung, protect your showcased possessions, this glass tower won't be able to survive the sharpness of it. Gloria Bell Lelio is not remaking but recooking the ingredients. And fortunately, it is as delicious as it was in the first place. Usually people consider the momentum of the previously ridden project- especially remaking it- and end up being vague and superstitious about their content, but not him, not Sebastian Lelio, the director. He is a gentleman, not when he is crafting the tiny aspects- the small talks Julianne Moore makes up in social visits or drive through songs she sings so religiously or how she dutifully attempts to mend the broken patches- of the struggle, women go through but when he puts the men in trial. Fair is their lexicon and familiar is their behavior. Is he extracting this from somewhere, of course, this definitely seems like a work from a good observer; just as good a storyteller he is. Another notable and impressive armory of his, is how confident and serene he is while making multiple characters confront each other and expect us to be moved by the intensity of it. And it does. With such a stupendous dinner conversation among a family, the pivotal point of the film, lives up to the responsibility of it. By now, Moore is just taking it easy. A career so spectacular and of such a wide range, she has pulled off a trigger like such before too, but not to this extent. She is punching hard frivolously for a more jarring impact and it works, we, as an audience, gets buzzed for it wolfishly. Lelio's world is a place where you would wish to reside in, it is hopeful and pragmatic, you get a chance to walk out of things and come back right into it, it is a free world just like ours, in fact it is ours, but not Gloria Bell, I don't know her but I would surely love to meet her.

Mind-boggling that MetaCritic critics could cash this out as an 80%! So wrong. If I could just save a handful of you from enduring 1hr40 of life-crushing tedium, I reproduce here my IMDB script: "A real struggle, both leads flounder with their characters. The cat, even though it's not a very nice cat, was the only person I could relate to. By the time the one fun scene arrives, it's far too late to redeem the movie. If you're married, this will stop you from divorcing. If not, it will stop you from dating." To which one might add, if you're a music buff, prepare for one of the worst movie soundtracks, crammed with aggravating songs you never ever wanted to even think about again.

I found this to be a charming little "slice of life" story, well performed and very satisfying. Julianne Moore is wonderful, as is the soundtrack. I wish there were more movies like this one.

POINTLESS! Yes, yes, Julianne Moore is excellent, and Tuturro isn't bad. But they don't GET anywhere. The script is devoid of any significant point or meaning. The most you can say is that Julianne finds modest strength in herself. I have a lot of patience for bad and mediocre movies, and never walk out, but I must admit that I squirmed in my chair for the last third of the movie. In short, get a script! Make a point!

BORING. Pointless movie. I wanted to walk out. Been a long time since I saw one this bad. Don't waste your money.

Julianne Moore plays a divorcée who sings in her car and loves to dance. Her days are spent at work and attempting to interact with her children. One nite, she meets John Turturro and they plunge into a romantic affair. Then things get complicated…otherwise, there wouldn't be a movie. This is a character study that allows Moore to act (although not as intensely as in Still Alice), while exploring family, sex and relationships on a mature level. It's enjoyable to watch her work, but the movie's narrative sometimes gets a bit ragged and is never really that compelling. I would expect this will appeal to women who can relate to her situation in life.

What a waste of time, money, and talent! All the people in the theatre agreed ...it was such a bad movie...especially with the great actors in it.

So I never saw the original Chilean version of this, but was intrigued enough by the premise and Julianne Moore starring in it. And while she's as endearing as ever and the film isn't without it's cute moments, it all felt a little too simple and unmemorable to me. It didn't do a ton to help it stand out from other similar films (and from what I've heard, this is a shot-for-shot remake of the original.) Overall, great performances from a solid cast (especially from Moore and John Turturro), it was fun but nothing too remarkable and ultimately forgettable to me.

Let me begin by saying, I love Julianne Moore. She is the entire reason I came to see this. Plus, the trailer looked good. However, this fell remarkably short to the point where I left the theater for a bit to take my time visiting the facilities and concession stand. This is something I have only done once or twice in my life. I expected to feel this storyline and characters whether if they were ordinary or extraordinary. This was not that movie. It presented itself as told from the perspective of a sexist man who does not understand women at all. The writer did, however, understand men with the emotion-evoking character, played by John Turturro, as a man that most women have met but would not have given a second chance. Watching this was difficult due to the massive talent of the cast being reduced to this poorly directed, edited and written film. Very slow moving, the storyline just did not come together. It felt discombobulated with characters introduced for no reason as their storyline just dropped off. A couple of ra-ra gimmicky woman empowerment moments that were nearly mocking and that is about it.

Perhaps “Gloria Bell” could more aptly be re-named “Lost in Translation.” Writer/Director Sebastian Lelio (2017 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for “A Fantastic Woman”) has taken his 2013 Spanish-language film “Gloria,” originally set in Santiago, Chile, and updated the story in current-day Los Angeles. One wonders why. It’s appropriate to applaud this film’s focus on mature adults, particularly given the recent steady diet of superhero films and an obsession with films emphasizing teens and young adults. The life of a 50-something divorcee navigating middle-adulthood would seem to offer many topics worth exploring. Unfortunately, “Gloria” has no big ideas to communicate. While we’re teased with brief observations about financial insecurity, the loneliness of divorce and the inevitable complexities of family, “Gloria” offers only a series of glancing blows, rather than taking a stand or making a point. Our protagonist, Gloria Bell (Julianne Moore), is a study in contradictions. In many facets of her life, she is all diligent earnestness and perky optimism: consoling a distraught co-worker, babysitting for a son with an absent wife, providing emotional support for a daughter preparing to move to Sweden to marry a big-wave surfer, coping with the noises of an upstairs neighbor in total meltdown. Soon enough, we learn that, beneath all this responsibility, Gloria is a woman of simple pleasures: “If the world blows up, I hope I go down dancing.” You’d think a woman with this clear-eyed outlook would find a partner equally sensible. Instead, Gloria gets saddled with Arnold (John Turturro), who aspires to a soulful romance, but is inextricably tethered to an ex-wife and two daughters who collectively make Glenn Close’s character in “Fatal Attraction” appear emotionally independent. He takes every phone call, meets every emotional need, all at the expense of his relationship with Gloria. If only he’d read “Co-Dependent No More.” Gloria’s motivations and feelings, too, are less than self-evident. When alone, she seems to alternate between comfortable aloneness and feeling uncomfortably lonely. Similarly, she seems self-contained and self-reliant when helping others, while projecting a subterranean neediness when trying to move forward with Arnold. What is remarkable about “Gloria” is Moore in the title role. She takes a character who is filled with internal inconsistencies and infuses her with a life force that consistently holds our attention and our compassion. Over the years, Moore’s skill has made us care about a variety of unlikeable characters, from the shrewish wife in Robert Altman’s 1993 “Short Cuts” to a porn star in “Boogie Nights” (1997) to a predatory, incestuous mother in “Savage Grace” (2002). In “Gloria,” she’s done something even more difficult: she’s taken a muddled character and made her unremarkable story compelling viewing.

There are a few actresses that are a delight to see no matter what picture they are in or no matter how bad the movie might be and in the case of "Gloria Bell" it is a delight to watch Julianne Moore sing, dance, act in a good movie. We have seen many movies--too many--of men in their mid-life crisis but very few women going through their own and, to a certain degree, that is what we are witnessing here. Gloria has been divorced for 12 years, her son and daughter have flown the nest and she has a job as an insurance agent, also recently has been diagnosed with an eye condition that will require her to take drops the rest of her life though we are never told (or I missed it) exactly what condition she has. She doesn't seem to have many friends but does enjoy herself singing, slightly off-key, along with old disco and rock songs on the radio while driving and goes to dance at clubs aimed mainly at middl-aged folks. One night she meets Arnold (John Turturro), a divorcee who is tied to his ex and his two grown single daughters and they start an affair. "Gloria Bell" is again written and directed by Sebastion Lelio who did a 2013 Spanish version of this film and Americanized this version. He tries to tell too many stories and would have served the movie better by eliminating 2 or 3 of them. While the hairless cat, the upstairs suicidal neighbor, her daughter running off to Norway with a professional surfer and her son left at home to raise his baby as his wife takes off to the desert shows a few sides to Gloria and how she reacts in each case I would have rathered he spent more time on Gloria's current life, her wants and needs. There are a two scenes with her mother played by Holland Taylor were telling and should have been expanded. The ending is sort of open-ended but if you know the words to Laura Branigan's disco hit you might have some idea of what will come. Just an aside/observation, with all that is going on in Hollywood these days I am surprised actresses aren't insisting that each time they have to show frontal nudity the male in the scene has to also though I admit Julianne Moore is much better to look at nude than any of the males in her scenes would! "Gloria Bell", as is Julianne Moore, is easy on the eyes as the songs are on the ears and touches on a subject not often seen on the screen enough for us, the audience, who should want to learn and see more on the subject of a woman's mid-life crisis except her going crazy as she has been shown in movies of the past.

A collection of interesting moments and ideas worthy of pondering, unfortunately, is not enough to make a story, as is very much the case with this ultimately tedious offering, a sort of present-day remake of "An Unmarried Woman." I kept waiting for the dots of this story to connect, but they never really do except in the vaguest of ways, making for an experience almost as unsatisfying as that of the life of the protagonist. Julianne Moore's earnest though somewhat overrated performance helps to maintain a modicum of viewer interest, but it's not enough to save a picture that's desperately in search of a reason to make it worth watching.

“Gloria Bell” stars Julianne Moore and John Torturro in the English version of Sebastian Lelio’s Chilean film entitled “Gloria” which,, like “Gloria Bell”, he also wrote and directed. This film, but for the language and locale is the same film as “Gloria” so American audiences can now see it absent subtitles and with a new leading lady. This is the big difference because although similar in almost all other respects, Ms. Moore dominates this film as only great and talented actresses can. Superficial and non-dimensional, the story is light and thin but what Ms. Moore does with the material makes it a worthwhile theatrical experience.. It’s hard to imagine this movie without her and, as a result, I give the film a rating of 7.

Great acting by one and all. Juliana was wonderful as was John Tuturro. The rest of the case was likewise. So here's the rub. The story was way too slow. Yes, it was a character study, but there was little or no excitement. There was empathy to be sure, but it was 'they are so sad.' We were all waiting for something to happens, and not a Hollywood ending. I guess it was intended to move along as slowly as real life. Some people can definitively relate to the characters, but that doesn't make them interesting. The music was spot on though. Juliana Moore was still amazing.