Safe (1995)

Safe
This isn't a movie where the heroine struggles against all odds to triumph over her illness as the audience learns facts about it. It's a bleak look at how society fails those who are different or have a problem, then tells them it's their own fault and if they would just do some positive thinking then they'll be fine.

Carol's illness is real, and serves as a metaphor for her alienation from society. Our modern world makes her sick on many levels, but no-one will help her, only blame her. I don't think the movie is as ambiguous as some claim: it's clear that we're meant to sympathise with Carol, and not with her bored husband, uncaring doctor, and greedy self-help guru. If we admit that Carol is really sick, then what does that say about the world we live in?

Kubrick fans won't mind the slow pace; fans of dark satire will enjoy Hayne's harsh take on modern life and self-help cults.

I have the illness and I still didn't like the film!
I am a sufferer of multiple food and chemical sensitivities, to the point where I can barely go out into the real world myself and am forced to live a life that most people would find weird to the extreme, avoiding just about everything. That was why I decided to watch this movie. I thought that it was about time someone made a movie about the illness, which is a very real and serious disease. So I sat down to watch the film with an open, receptive mind, ready to be dazzled.

I could not have been more disappointed. This movie was a steaming heap of garbage. The scriptwriter clearly did not understand the illness...that was glaringly obvious. Just as annoyingly, I don't think he knew how to write a decent movie script. It was slow and annoying, and don't expect to feel any empathy for the characters, even the sick ones. I kept waiting for the main character to wake up to just how insane the health cult she joined was, but she never did. I mean, telling people they were sick because they wanted to be? Please, how stupid would you have to be to believe something like that?

This is a real illness, and a serious one. Immune system disorders are on the rise in society. More people are suffering allergy and asthma and diseases of the immune system than ever before. It's a medical fact, and one that needs a lot more attention than it's getting. But I would rather it got no attention at all than to have cruddy movies like this made about it!

There is a good reason this movie didn't rake it in at the box office...it's not to do with the fact that it's about an illness; I mean, movies like 'Awakenings' and 'Lorenzo's Oil', not to mention all those movies about people dying of cancer, and the numerous tv shows set in hospitals and medical practices, prove that medical stories are actually box office and tv gold if they're handled in the right way by decent scriptwriters. But this film is just so DULL and idiotic and poorly written and badly filmed...you would have to pay me a LOT of money to sit through watching this again!

This movie may have some limited appeal to people who know NOTHING about the disease it's supposed to be about. Voyeurs, the uninformed, posers who like 'alternative' movies no matter how bad they are, and people who like watching freak shows may find an interest in the film. But for anyone who likes fast paced, well written entertainment, or who wants to learn about the FACTS of this disease and its true and devastating impact on the way its sufferers live, then I would suggest looking elsewhere.

If you want to know more about the illness, I suggest watching two exceptional Australian documentaries, 'Canary in the Mine' and 'The Final Insult'. They're difficult to get hold of, but well worth seeing.

Safe
This isn't a movie where the heroine struggles against all odds to triumph over her illness as the audience learns facts about it. It's a bleak look at how society fails those who are different or have a problem, then tells them it's their own fault and if they would just do some positive thinking then they'll be fine.

Carol's illness is real, and serves as a metaphor for her alienation from society. Our modern world makes her sick on many levels, but no-one will help her, only blame her. I don't think the movie is as ambiguous as some claim: it's clear that we're meant to sympathise with Carol, and not with her bored husband, uncaring doctor, and greedy self-help guru. If we admit that Carol is really sick, then what does that say about the world we live in?

Kubrick fans won't mind the slow pace; fans of dark satire will enjoy Hayne's harsh take on modern life and self-help cults.