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Movie Review: The Safety of Objects

A dark look at the responses to tragedy.

by Janey | 2003.02.19

Grief and loss is a common subject of film and other artistic endeavors, and I seem to be gravitating toward films with that theme these days. Love, Liza, reviewed last week, is about a man coming to terms (or not) with the suicide of his wife. The Hours has been receiving much well deserved praise for its portrayal of the many kinds of loss that thread through the generations. Latest in this lineup is The Safety of Objects.

In sharp contrast to Love, Liza, about which I complained that the protagonist hid from his feelings, the characters that people The Safety of Objects follow the accepted advice of society in general as they try to move through their grief. “Time heals all wounds,” the old adage goes, and most often we try to bury or ignore our feelings in the hope that once enough time has passed, we’ll heal all by ourselves. We also know that people are really nervous about seeing raw feelings, so we try to keep them hidden. None of these strategies works, but they’re all we know.

The film centers around several families in a single neighborhood, each of which has been profoundly changed by a single event in their overlapping lives. Paul Gold (Joshua Jackson), aspiring musician and songwriter, is comatose. His mother, Esther (Glenn Close), tries unsuccessfully to ignore her grief and simply be grateful that he is alive. His sister, Julie (Jessica Campbell), shuts down all emotions. This tight universe is circled by all the others affected by Paul’s accident or the family’s grief.

The Safety of Objects is another film set in the suburbs, giving a hard look at the lives of people who have bought into the suburban mythology of creature comforts equating to happiness. There are plenty of material goods substituting for human intimacy in this film, as well as an object or two that are personified and a human being (Paul) who is turned into an object. And yet, unlike many suburban films, this one has a deep seated respect for the feelings and hopes, however misguided, of its characters. Based on the book of short stories by A.M. Homes, it neither hides the peculiarities nor leers at them.

Because Homes wrote the book, we know at the outset that this won’t be just another Ordinary People for the new millennium. Homes has “a wicked sense of humor” (as she attributes to God), one that makes many people quite uncomfortable. The Safety of Objects may be a story about how families and individuals process loss, but it is simultaneously a strangely funny look at adolescent sexuality. Homes has been criticized by many for her writing on children and sex, most notably in The End of Alice, which is told from the point of view of a pedophile, but one thing she never does is let us get off easily. The screenplay for The Safety of Objects was written by its director, Rose Troche (Go Fish, Bedrooms and Hallways). Troche has put her own stamp on the stories and has interwoven them ingeniously, inspiring comparisons to Altman.

There are many things to like about The Safety of Objects. There is the unsentimental but sympathetic view of each of the characters and predicaments portrayed. There is the way that each character builds the story by their timely recollection of events. We are never given more than we need to know at any given moment, but the final product is far greater than the sum of its parts. There are the many fine performances in the ensemble cast that includes Patricia Clarkson, Mary Kay Place, Dermot Mulroney and several quite believable young actors, along with those mentioned above. And there are the many moments of genuine comedy, sometimes dark and sometimes light, but always well played.

Even though the film provides no more answers about loss than Love, Liza does, I found it infinitely more satisfying. The heart of the film is closer to my own -- strange, dark, and somewhat twisted.

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