| THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS |
 2001 – USA
Director: Rose Troche - Reviewed by Linda
We meet four families: The Golds, the Trains, the Jennings, and the Christiansons... and let's not forget the handyman gardener Randy (Timothy Olyphant). Esther Gold (Glenn Close) takes care of her comatose golden boy son Paul (Joshua Jackson), a budding musician that was cut down in his prime in a car accident. Esther is closer to her vegetable son than to her surviving teenage daughter Julie (Jessica Campbell), who is rebellious and emotionally distant from her family. Jim Train (Dermot Mulroney) is a family man, bringing home the bacon to his wife and kids as a middle-man attorney. One day he finds out that he didn't get the promotion to partner that he was expecting, and all of his life goals are sent into a tailspin. The always fabulous Mary Kay Place plays Helen Christianson, a taken-for-granted housewife that is one the verge of shaking up her life for some excitement. And to round out the neighborhood are the Jennings, single-mom Annette (Patricia Clarkson) and her kids Sam and Rayanne, whom she is doing her best to raise independently. This is the type of film that unfolds slowly, and it is a treat to watch the plot lines develop, so I don't want to give away too much. Let's just say that director Rose Troche reveals relationships and stories between the characters gradually, somehow managing to keep a major secret until the very end. Plus it has one of the best original film soundtracks that I've heard in a long time, the tunes all composed specially for the film. Flashbacks to Paul performing with his band before his accident serve as a musical thread throughout the film. The soundtrack compliments and enhances the story almost like another character, being both melancholy, and stick-in-your-head memorable. The Safety of Objects is refreshingly subtle in its emotion. Unlike some movies that hit you over the head with spotlight rip-your-heart-out scenes, Safety is affecting as a whole. It is the journey, not just the culmination, that sticks with you long after the film ends. |
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The
Safety of Objects will inevitably be compared to Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia
and Todd Solondz's Happiness because of their style of filmmaking.
Stories of several suburban, WASP-y families careen along, crossing paths,
occasionally intertwining, and ultimately crashing into each other in revealing
ways by the end. But Safety is not mean, like Magnolia, or icky,
like Happiness. It takes you in surprising directions, not copping-out
with outrageous plot twists, but builds with a gentle power (and humor) that
leaves you quietly devastated by the end.
