Gloria Bell

"When the world blows up, I hope I go down dancing."

Gloria Bell sees Julianne Moore in the titular role, leading a boring life in a mundane job before regularly taking to the dance club scenes of the Los Angeles nightlife. She’s single, passionate, and ready to find someone that will give her day-to-day life more of a thrill again.

Bell, the film’s namesake, is a successful insurance claims agent who lives a vibrant life and has a good apartment and good hobbies, who has good relationships with her family members and is on good terms with her ex-husband and his new wife. Everything in her life is overwhelmingly good but in that is idly repetitive, and it seems Gloria has grown entirely numb to it. That is, of course, until she meets the seductively charming Arnold at one of her dance clubs, and he shows her that it is never too late for life to be exciting and enchanting. When she meets Arnold, it becomes clear that he is very similar to Gloria, despite him being so in-demand from his close-fisted children proving a contrast to her independence from her family. Their comparably monotonous lives is what makes their relationship soon turn rocky due to their personal lives clashing, and Gloria quickly discovers that Arnold is a lot harder to decipher than she first thought.

Whilst this remake doesn’t exactly bring anything new or refreshing to the table, its existence is completely rationalized by Julianne Moore’s magnifying performance. The way she communicates her characters content, awkward nature is simply perfect and makes the entire film a lot more worthwhile. Whilst all of the performances are admirable, Julianne Moore has a way of making every single role she plays feel like it was written specifically with her in mind, and this is no exception.

The film ends with the protagonist, rather suitably dancing to Laura Branigan’s ‘Gloria’. This scene mirrors the start of the film where we saw Gloria dancing at a club, and is a rather fitting tribute of the character coming full circle that conveys to cinema-goers that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her ordinary life so long as she is enjoying every moment. 

★★★½