Safe (1995)

SAFE is an unnerving story about a housewife, Carol (brilliantly played by Julianne Moore), who falls physically and psychologically ill from her environment. Director Todd Haynes casts an instantly eerie spell with hypnotic cinematography as Carols stoic, perfect world is introduced. Her home is exquisite, her husband (Xander Berkeley) loving, her son (Chauncey Leopardi) typical, her best friend loyal. But after Carol learns her friend Lindas (Susan Norman) brother has died mysteriously, Carol begins to experience her own strange symptoms. Her illness eventually transforms her seemingly protected, upper middle-class existence into a terror of everyday life. She becomes so ill--with her doctor and friends concluding its all psychological--that she begins to investigate a cult-like healing center that provides a protective bubble from what its followers call "the twentieth century disease"--a kind of allergy to everything modern or chemical. With its stunning art direction and an impressive performance by its star, SAFE is both a chilling tale of existential dread and a witty commentary on modern suburban life.