The narrative spans nearly thirty years, beginning in 1946 New York. Barbara Daly (played by Julianne Moore) marries Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane), the grandson of Leo Baekeland, the inventor of Bakelite plastic. Despite their immense wealth and status, their marriage is cold and unstable.
Barbara’s obsession with "curing" her son’s sexuality and maintaining her own social status leads her to interfere in his relationships in destructive ways.
The 2007 film Savage Grace , directed by Tom Kalin, is a haunting dramatization of the real-life Barbara Daly Baekeland