Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Safety of All Objects

This is topic The Safety of All Objects in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Nate Lehrke (Member # 1460) on 02-27-2003, 01:32 AM:

The “Safety of All Objects” is mediocre at best.

Now being that this film was directed by Rose Troche, I expected a gay theme or feministic approach; based on her other two pictures: ‘Go Fish’ & ‘Bedrooms & Hallways’. What I got was a mix of ‘American Beauty’ & ‘The Hours’ (There wasn’t one good male-female relationship throughout the film though)

The feature based on the A.M. Homes book “The Safety of Objects” which has seven short stories which do not relate to each other, except they all share a common setting. The stories are not tied together at the end either. The movie has taken 5 of the shorts and created four families in suburbia. Showing the dysfunctional family from a predominately women’s view.

The movie focuses on 4 days in the lives of a supposed typical suburban family. A mother (Glen Close) and daughter whose relationship was broken after the son/brother injured himself and ended up quadalplegic. The other families include: an angry divorcee whose ex-husband is a stereotypical bad father & a mid-life crisis mother who’s contemplating leaving her husband & a lawyer who hates his life. (One note, all the woman in the stories don’t work whatsoever & have children.)

I felt as if the director was trying to pull off a “Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels” by having the four seemingly separate stories that would eventually come together in the end. There’s the typical flash back sequence as well as a fantasy sequence & five different voice-over narrations. She has seemingly no character development & I felt no connection to the characters what’s so ever. It seemed like the director wanted to include everything possible in her film that the plot was lost.

There are also many ‘rip off’ scenes (seems to happen more often nowadays) One scene I think they just spliced in about a minute of ‘American Beauty’; Trying to capture the window voyeurism. There is also the “lost character” who is in the film only when convenient but is never seen again (Like in “The Rookie” Where did the infant child go?)

Now, if you take the movie and break it up into 20 minute shorts, it is done well. It’s just the attempt at the emotional connection & tying the stories together that will loose the audience.

All in all. If it’s free…..maybe check it out.