Glo­ria Bell

There’s some­thing so lib­er­at­ing about a woman danc­ing on her own and singing along to dis­co anthems for the plea­sure of no one else but her­self. Glo­ria Bell is someone’s moth­er, she used to be someone’s wife, and some­times she’s someone’s lover. But when she per­forms, she belongs only to her­self and the rest of us should be so lucky as to catch a glimpse as she twirls.

Julianne Moore fills the shoes of Sebastián Lelio’s every­day super­star char­ac­ter, first seen in his 2013 film Glo­ria, now angli­cised in a close­ly-resem­bling remake the film­mak­er has also helmed. This Glo­ria gives Moore the free­dom and ener­gy to talk, move and feel bold­ly, as she brims with hap­py-go-lucky charis­ma that cel­e­brates age­less independence.

Glo­ria Bell joins the pleas­ant canon of films let­ting women over the age of 40 sim­ply do more than wait at home while the younger char­ac­ters put on a more dra­mat­ic show. Tak­ing stock of the sec­ond-wind hedo­nism of Book Club but with a table for one this time, Lelio’s remake is spir­it­ed and sen­ti­men­tal, giv­ing Glo­ria the stage to dis­cov­er all the fun she can have with­out any­one else’s per­mis­sion or prohibition.

She loves to dance but also loves to love, and so when Glo­ria meets Arnold (John Tur­tur­ro, on charm­ing form), a fel­low divor­cé, her hap­pi­ness blooms and is shared nice­ly for a while. But while eyes meet across the bar, it’s main­ly cir­cum­stance that brings the pair togeth­er – they’ve both known heart­break and had fam­i­lies, age is a num­ber they know all too well. But ulti­mate­ly we realise their emo­tion­al thresh­olds are imbal­anced, and that Glo­ria is always at her best when she’s fol­low­ing her heart alone.

The in-between moments of the film, when the par­ty stops and her smile rests, have much less to offer. Efforts to shade Gloria’s world with more recog­nis­able anx­i­ety – about lone­li­ness, about phys­i­cal beau­ty – make it lose in colour, and the more dif­fi­cult moments aren’t quite vis­cer­al enough to com­mu­ni­cate pain, instead just delay­ing all the good times she could be hav­ing. This feel­ing might be less obvi­ous if Moore wasn’t so lumi­nous. She’s the kind of per­former you could watch for­ev­er, bring­ing gen­eros­i­ty to mun­dan­i­ty and mak­ing every tacky nee­dle drop sound like a gen­er­a­tional anthem.

The film belongs to Moore, and it does make you won­der what it could look like under a fresh pair of eyes direct­ing this tal­ent while colour­ing a more inspir­ing land­scape with a new sto­ry. But Lelio still offers enough to pass the time breezi­ly, swap­ping the fear and pes­simism often asso­ci­at­ed with the process of grow­ing old­er for some­thing alto­geth­er more hope­ful and youth­ful. Glo­ria Bell’s inde­pen­dent verve salutes the women brave and bold enough to thrive instead of only being allowed to sur­vive – and it knows that no one is wor­thy enough to stop danc­ing for.