When There’s Nowhere to Hide: Todd Haynes’s Safe at 30

One of the most chilling horror films of the ’90s doesn’t announce itself as such. It’s not an entry in the Halloween, Friday the 13th, or Elm Street franchises. It isn’t self-aware like Scream, a conventional monster movie, or based on a story by Stephen King. Rather, it’s a film where the threat is invisible, undetectable, and impossible to defend against. Todd Haynes’s Safe has been unnerving audiences ever since it premiered out of competition at Sundance, and it hasn’t lost an ounce of its power over the last three decades.

As is often the case in a “disease movie” – as Haynes calls it in his introduction to the published screenplay – the one in Safe initially manifests itself with a tiny, unexplained sneeze. It’s an early sign something is wrong with San Fernando Valley housewife Carol White (Julianne Moore), but it takes a while for other symptoms to appear. The next morning, her husband Greg (Xander Berkeley) asks how her sinuses are and she says, “Better,” so she’s able to go through the motions of an ordinary day for her: gardening, aerobics, visiting a friend whose brother has died (but not of AIDS, she’s quick to clarify when Carol makes the allusion). It’s only when she gets home and discovers the department store has delivered the wrong color couch (black instead of teal) that her placid, well-ordered life is disrupted.

The next morning, while workmen are repainting her cabinets, Carol has a slight feeling of dizziness, but deep breathing and a full glass of milk gives her the strength to pick up the dry cleaning and have it out with the department store’s shipping manager. Any sense of accomplishment evaporates on the drive home, though, when vehicle exhaust fumes cause a major coughing fit and a full-blown panic attack when she can’t find a place to pull over and catch her breath.

A visit to her doctor is inconclusive, and a second appointment becomes necessary when getting a perm triggers a nosebleed and she vomits when Greg hugs her after using aerosol deodorant and hairspray. (He tries not to take it personally, but she’s also begged off sex for a week because of her nightly headaches, and later says she can’t sleep in the same room because of “the air, the smell.”) Mirroring Greg’s frustration, their doctor refers Carol to a psychiatrist, who is unhelpful in the extreme, but by that time she’s already seen a flyer at her health club that reads, “Do you smell FUMES?” This clues her in that it’s not all in her head; that she’s far from the only person who might be “allergic to the 20th century.”

The early passages of Safe are highly reminiscent of the scenes in The Exorcist of Regan being examined by various medical professionals who are dumbfounded by the manifestations of her nascent possession. That film’s infamous spinal tap is even echoed by Carol’s visit to an allergist who sticks her with a dozen needles to determine what she might be allergic to. Between doctor visits and attending seminars about “environmental illness,” Carol’s attempts to maintain her social calendar go awry when she has a particularly scary attack at a baby shower (where it’s revealed she’s a subject of gossip amongst her so-called friends) and winds up in the hospital after walking into her dry cleaner’s while it’s being fumigated. Eventually, her only recourse is to retreat to the Wrenwood Center, a “chemical-free zone” which is called “a kind of safe haven for our troubled times” by its sketchy founder.

The shift in setting is pivotal for Carol and the film, since up that point both have been drowning in pastels, which are everywhere from her home to her hospital room. Abandoning the first half’s urban landscapes for Wrenwood’s desert vistas, Carol makes the rounds with her ever-present oxygen tank, one of the crutches brought with her from civilization. Introduced to the rest of the group as a “long-termer,” Carol’s road to recovery is rocky from the start, and the cult-like vibe isn’t helped by the jargon-heavy language all are encouraged to use. (The talk of getting “clear” raises the specter of Scientology more readily today than it did 30 years ago.)

Throughout, Moore makes the most of her first lead, playing a character whose body is betraying her at every step, and who has to fight to make herself and her concerns heard. Unsurprisingly, as Haynes has gone on to bigger films, he continues to write challenging parts for her, including her Oscar-nominated turn in Far from Heaven (the “women’s picture” to Safe’s “disease movie”). As for the film that brought them together, Safe has gained extra resonance in the past five years, as people were forced to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves. And it is likely to continue to be relevant as more mysterious ailments make themselves known.

“Safe” is available for rent or purchase.

Craig J. Clark watches a lot of movies. He started watching them in New Jersey, where he was born and raised, and has continued to watch them in Bloomington, Indiana, where he moved in 2007. In addition to his writing for Crooked Marquee, Craig also contributes the monthly Full Moon Features column to Werewolf News. He is not a werewolf himself (or so he says).

Back to top