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Are You SAFE?
by Robert B. DeSalvo

Carol White has a lot of issues. The couch she ordered was not black, her maid, Fulvia, is never around to give her milk and her fruit diet plan just isn't working out. What oh what could be causing all this malaise? "It's the chemicals!" she gasps, but no one believes her.

The 1995 film Safe, starring Julianne Moore, chronicles the downfall of a Los Angeles housewife into a hell of paranoia and self-loathing. It is, quite simply, one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen in addition to offering exquisite insight into who we are and what keeps us sane. Watch it and tell me Ms. Moore was not ROBBED at Oscar time.

The film opens with a sneeze, foreshadowing more problems to come for our heroine. As Carol begins to have sex with her husband, we infer from the detached look on her face that something is not quite right. She obviously loves her husband and stepson and tries to be a good housewife, but when her new couch is delivered things quickly go downhill. Carol insists she ordered teal instead of black, but the company tells her that she is mistaken. A self-proclaimed milkaholic, she tries to keep concerned maid Fulvia close to offer emotional (and dairy) support through this "difficult" time.

"I'm OK. . . I'm fine."

Carol reluctantly starts a "fruit diet" at the suggestion of her friend (Carol later attributes this to setting off her "condition"). Soon after, our red-headed heroine is caught in traffic behind a truck spewing nasty fumes (don't you just hate that?). She starts coughing uncontrollably and has to pull over in a parking garage. Later, at her aerobics club, she notices a flyer that says "Do you smell fumes?" From that moment on Carol is not the same. She now has something to blame for all her woes-- THE CHEMICALS!

After making the horrible error of getting a perm (not only does it look tacky, perm solution is not exactly pleasant smelling), Carol gets nose bleeds and has a seizure at a dry cleaners. She goes to a meeting where others suffer from this "20th Century Disease" and begins to construct a "safe" zone in her house which is free of all these nasty substances that are making her ill. Still, no doctor or allergist can identify anything physically wrong with poor Carol. She even goes to a psychiatrist. Everyone keeps asking Carol how she is, to which she replies "I'm OK" or "I'm fine." She then apologizes for every action she makes, and we begin to see that the environment isn't making Carol sick, she is.

Carol and her oxygen tank go to a retreat home in New Mexico for people with "20th Century Disease." There she meets a disturbed bunch of patients, including environmentally-terrified Lester, who are trying to get guidance from counselors who have gone through similar problems. The hippie atmosphere, talky sessions and uplifting Joan Baez ditties don't seem to phase Carol. She still thinks the fumes are out to get here (even though she is in the middle of the desert) and requests to be moved into the porcelain "safe house," which looks like an igloo. When her husband comes to visit, Carol shrugs away from him. "I think it's your cologne" she says, but her husband says he isn't wearing any.

Beaten, Carol retreats into her porcelein-lined igloo (I swear I'm not making this up). Finally realizing what her real problem is, she approaches the mirror and says "I love you." By now, her face has broken out in a rash and she can't wear any makeup. She blankly says "I love you" a few more times before the screen fades to black.

"I think maybe it's your cologne, or. . ."

I believe Carol was making the first step to recovery, since a counselor earlier in the film told her that she was so ill and hated herself so much that she couldn't leave her "safe" house. She kept saying "I love you" over and over again into the mirror until she believed it and could move on with her life. My sister and boyfriend maintain that Carol had no conviction in her voice at the end and was a beaten woman-- she was finally crazy. Being that I was so moved by Carol White's character, I refuse to believe Carol lived in that igloo for the rest of her life. Perhaps I will be proven correct when a sequel, perhaps titled "Safer," opens and features a self-empowered Carol who returns to Los Angeles and kicks some butt. The moral of this movie is the motto of my life-- no one can make you feel good about yourself. You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for the quality of your life. Blaming outside forces will just make you end up like Carol White.

UPDATE (5/22/97)

Being the intrepid reporter that I am, I went straight to the horse's mouth to find out what happened to Carol White. I asked Julianne Moore in the Universal Studios Online chat room what she thought happened to Carol at the end of Safe. Her reply? She said, "I always ask people what they think happened to Carol because it tells me a lot about them and how they view her predicament. Personally, I think Carol doesn't get any better-- that she only gets worse. She's just gone to another place where they're going to tell her who she is, and that will continue to make her sick."

Poor, poor Carol.

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