Gloria Bell is a 2018 film by Chilean filmmaker Sebastián Lelio, an American adaptation of his 2013 film, Gloria.
I never even knew this film existed, but it was on pay cable, so my wife and I watched it and I really enjoyed it.
It feels like there are more and more films on HBO, Showtime, Starz, et al. where it’s like, this movie exists? It used to be, you’d look them up on Rotten Tomatoes and you never heard of them because they’re turkeys—but more and more, these films are quite good.
In Gloria Bell, Julianne Moore stars as a free-spirited divorcée who navigates life and relationships. (Are there any bad Julianne Moore performances?)
The score by British electronic musician Matthew Herbert is remarkable. It was released on a very short Milan CD (24 minutes, presumably all the music there is) and is a spacey, dreamy, electronic-acoustic combination that evokes a sense of wonder and spiritual awakening—but with great subtlety and taste. And it’s quite thematic, rare for these kinds of films where the score usually feels mostly textural.
I enjoyed it and would recommend it.