Despite its admiration of all the things that money can buy, Tom Kalin’s new film “Savage Grace” is especially preoccupied with the things it cannot.

Based on the true story of one of the most sensational murder cases in American history, “Savage Grace” dissects life in the Baekeland family in the years leading up to Antony Baekeland’s (Eddie Redmayne) cold-blooded murder of his mother, Barbara (Julianne Moore), in 1972. Jetting between Paris, Majorca, and New York, Barbara and her husband, Brooks (Stephen Dillane), seemed to have the world at their fingertips. But this marriage between the Bakelite heir and his beautiful, formerly working-class wife led to more than just a messy divorce.

From the onset, Mr. Kalin — whose last feature film, 1992’s “Swoon,” revisited the infamous Leopold and Loeb murder — makes it clear that all is not right in the world that Leo Baekeland built. The inventor of Bakelite (the first plastic made from synthetic components) is revered by his grandson Brooks, and young Tony comes of age in the shadow of these two formidable men. But like many aspects of this film, Leo’s worldview, based mostly on a veneration for wealth, is not as unassailable as it seems. By the time Tony relays one of his grandfather’s favorite dictums about money — that it “allows us to not live with the consequences of our mistakes” — it’s just a matter of time before someone makes a mistake that money can’t fix.

Early on, of course, basking in the products of the Baekeland empire looks pretty good, and Mr. Kalin has filled his film with beautiful human specimens, from Hugh Dancy to Elena Anaya and Unax Ugalde. From a dramatic standpoint, the story is replete with the crises that plague the rich and entertain the rest of us — namely, betrayal, intrigue, and scandal. But the Baekeland story goes much further, delving into incest and matricide.

Antony’s burgeoning homosexuality frightened the socially obsessed Barbara into hiring willing girls to take her son to bed. When that didn’t work, she tried to “cure” him herself. Tony committed suicide on Rikers Island in 1981 after he had stabbed his grandmother following a stint at a psychiatric hospital.

Were it not based in fact, the film could be derided as sensationalist pulp. As it stands, scenes degrading the film’s star (including one particularly scarring sex scene) border on the abusive. But despite, or perhaps on account of, the indignities of her character, Ms. Moore takes off running with the role.

While the depictions of Barbara Baekeland’s twisted marriage and relationship with her son reek of Oscar bait, Ms. Moore permeates every scene, action, and aspect of “Savage Grace,” a testament to the strange power that the real Barbara held over her family. The gimlet-eyed view of this morose tale can be hard to swallow at times, but Ms. Moore’s approach to the beautiful and disturbed Barbara is acute, captivating, and shattering.

Together with Mr. Redmayne’s portrayal of Tony, the two make for a disturbingly alluring screen pair. Mr. Redmayne’s striking resemblance to Ms. Moore is compacted by his sly approach to the role. Raised in the turmoil of his glamorous parents’ cantankerous world, Tony becomes alternatively insightful, endearing, and sullen as the film progresses.

Mr. Kalin’s deft, flexible approach to the subject matter makes it increasingly difficult to choose allegiances in this twisted drama, and placing blame becomes nearly impossible as the characters shift among fits of generosity, villainy, and victimhood. Freed from the constraints of earning their living, and existing on a bottomless reserve of cash, the characters find their priorities have become ruled by whims — bad choices rationalized by the endgame of violence.

As narrated by Tony, the on-screen drama is ensconced in a whirlwind of international decadence stretching over three decades and countless trendy locales and social circles. Ms. Moore is wrapped in sumptuous silks, bright Chanels, and intricate hairstyles of evolving fashion, highlighting her fragile yet commanding beauty. It’s hard not to get wrapped up in the lifestyle Mr. Kalin presents in such glittering detail, further proving the point of “Savage Grace”: For the very rich, money can diminish the impact of certain misdeeds; but when money is the root of those misdeeds, the path to redemption can become impossible to find.