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The Safety Of Objects
2001
In a quiet suburb, Paul Gold (Joshua Jackson) lies in a coma. His mother, Esther (Glenn Close), dutifully cares for him, growing ever distant from her husband and her teenage daughter, Julie (Jessica Campbell). Julie enters Esther in a contest of endurance as a means of bringing them closer together. Unbeknownst to his wife, .. Read more
| Starring | Glenn Close, Dermot Mulroney, Moira Kelly, Jessica Campbell |
|---|---|
| Director | Rose Troche |
| Genres | Drama |
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The Safety Of Objects
In a quiet suburb, Paul Gold (Joshua Jackson) lies in a coma. His mother, Esther (Glenn Close), dutifully cares for him, growing ever distant from her husband and her teenage daughter, Julie (Jessica Campbell). Julie enters Esther in a contest of endurance as a means of bringing them closer together. Unbeknownst to his wife, the Gold's neighbour, Jim Train (Dermot Mulroney), has quit his job without telling his wife. Needing a purpose, he becomes Esther's cheerleader. Meanwhile, the Trains' neighbour, Helen (Mary Kay Place), tries various products in hopes that they will keep her youthful while her friend Annette (Patricia Clarkson)--who was involved with Paul--weathers a messy divorce and raises two kids. At the same time, Paul's bandmate, handyman Randy (Timothy Olyphant), deals with personal loss in his own self-destructive way.
Director Rose Troche has skillfully taken the characters from several stories by A.M. Homes (from the book of the same title) and condensed them into one universe, allowing them to interact with each other. Taking a detour from the usual independent film route of ridiculing suburbia, Troche treats the characters with respect, even when their behaviour is reprehensible or their actions take the film into the realm of the darkly comic. Universally solid performances, especially from Close and Mulroney, emphasise the point that, contrary to popular belief, suburbia is not always lacking heart and soul.
| Starring | Glenn Close, Dermot Mulroney, Moira Kelly, Jessica Campbell, Patricia Clarkson, Joshua Jackson, Robert Klein, Timothy Olyphant, Mary Kay Place, Kristen Stewart, Alex House |
|---|---|
| Director | Rose Troche |
| Studio | ENTERTAINMENT IN VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 55 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Drama |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 09 Feb 2004 Production year: 2001 |
| Format | DVD |
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Critics' reviews (5)
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Like Robert Altman's Short Cuts, writer/director Rose Troche's The Safety of Objects is based on disparate short stories that have been cleverly woven into a cohesive whole. There, sadly, the similarities end. As four neighbouring families go about the everyday business of their misery and pain (loveless marriages, thankless jobs, infidelity, divorce etc), a tragedy from the past awaits its big flashback. Despite a fair cast — Glenn Close as the stoic mother of a comatose son (Dawson's Creek's Joshua Jackson), Dermot Mulroney as a disillusioned husband and Patricia Clarkson as a single mom — the film never takes flight, remaining a string of well-trodden, so-what vignettes. Neither as weird as Blue Velvet, as comic as American Beauty, nor as profound as The Ice Storm, it nods to all three and resolves itself way too neatly. Life, even for these pampered middle-class ingrates, just isn't like this. Ordinary People has a lot to answer for.
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Based on AM Homes' short stories, this is a left-field, Short Cuts-style collage of suburban America. It's an incident... read more on Time Out
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Most helpful member's review
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9 out of 9 people found this review helpful
The new Ice storm or American Beauty?
A powerful story intertwining the lives of four neighboring families as they struggle to understand each other and, ultimately, themselves.
Maybe everyone's not OK. Maybe everyone is as crazy as I am. Maybe that person walking their dog is imagining what it would be like to leap into the air, crash through a nearby upstairs window and spin around so fast that everything in the room turns to butter. Maybe they imbue inanimate objects with soul and voice. Maybe they don't want to throw away their old socks for fear of hurting their feelings.
If The Ice Storm, American Beauty, and The Safety of Objects are any indication, all is not well in the American psyche. These films tell the story of otherwise unremarkable suburban American lives that, just below the surface, border on the bizarre. The Safety of Objects is he most recent in this growing genre of well made explorations of madness in the mainstream. -
Most recent members' review
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9 out of 9 people found this review helpful
The new Ice storm or American Beauty?
A powerful story intertwining the lives of four neighboring families as they struggle to understand each other and, ultimately, themselves.
Maybe everyone's not OK. Maybe everyone is as crazy as I am. Maybe that person walking their dog is imagining what it would be like to leap into the air, crash through a nearby upstairs window and spin around so fast that everything in the room turns to butter. Maybe they imbue inanimate objects with soul and voice. Maybe they don't want to throw away their old socks for fear of hurting their feelings.
If The Ice Storm, American Beauty, and The Safety of Objects are any indication, all is not well in the American psyche. These films tell the story of otherwise unremarkable suburban American lives that, just below the surface, border on the bizarre. The Safety of Objects is he most recent in this growing genre of well made explorations of madness in the mainstream. -
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The Safety Of Objects
In a quiet suburb, Paul Gold (Joshua Jackson) lies in a coma. His mother, Esther (Glenn Close), dutifully cares for him, growing ever distant from her husband and her teenage daughter, Julie (Jessica Campbell). Julie enters Esther in a contest of endurance as a means of bringing them closer ...
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