Rating: 
Summary: Nice Film, Good Messages...a Bit Long
Review: "The Safety of Objects" has a great ensemble cast set in a suburban neighborhood where all the neighbors clearly share some history. Rose Troche, the Writer/Director, builds an intricate web of relationships all centered on an event that happened in the past. As the story unfolds, we learn about this event through a series of flashbacks that slowly build on the depth of the characters in interesting and surprising ways.One of the funniest and most creative elements is a love affair between a young boy and his sister's Barbie-like doll. I liked this film, but it does drag a bit at times and borrows a too heavily from other films, including: "Hands on a Hard Body" (1998) and "American Beauty" (1999). With some editing, I would have given it 4 stars.
Rating: 
Summary: Wickedly Entertaining!!!!
Review: A delicious cast delivers terrific performances in this wonderfully upbeat and engrossing ensemble drama in which we quietly follow four neighboring suburban families in their overlapping journeys through loss and reconciliation. Although an ensemble effort, Glenn Close provides the emotional core of the film as Esther Gold, the mother of troubled teen Julie (Jessica Campbell) and comatose Paul (Joshua Jackson). Paul's story is told in flashback, and it ties together the film's characters. The neighbors face their own trials, as Jim Train (Dermot Mulroney) faces a career crisis and Annette Jennings (Patricia Clarkson) copes with serial abandonment. More families and sub-stories bubble up, including a disturbingly hilarious romance between a boy (Alex House) and his sister's Barbie doll. Like Robert Altman's "Short Cuts," which weaves together a selection of Raymond Carver stories, "The Safety of Objects" overlaps tales from A.M. Homes' short-story collection of the same name. "Objects" accomplishes the singular feat of adapting Homes' insular material while showcasing the director's own sense of intimacy and thematic structure. Director Rose Troche has crafted a gothic suburban tale about how life affects us all. She presents it with such confidence and care, that we love all of the characters, even if we don't like them.
The movie is unsettling because it refuses to view its characters from a reassuring, judgmental distance, allowing us to see what we normally wouldn't, and shouldn't. It makes for a shocking and emotional journey, with only the ending being disappointing. "The Safety of Objects" is brilliantly acted, beautifully written, and powerfully directed. If conventional Hollywood garbage isn't your cup of tea, this film is highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: LIFE IN SUBURBIA
Review: Adapted from A.H. Homes's book of short stories, THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS follows three upper middle-class suburban families that appear to be in the midst of existential crisis as they venture about their normal day-to-day routines. Behind the nice homes, swimming pools, and luxury cars these characters are suffering from grief, pain, heartache and remorse. The viewer constantly gets the feeling that he/she should empathize with these sullen characters but something is amiss. I just couldn't 'get' into this film. Character motivations fail to be explained and the overall message is so clouded that I left the theatre wondering what I just saw. Some scenes and dialogue are comical, but is this intended? If the intention of THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS is to suggest that The American Dream (i.e., home ownership in a safe community) has gone desperately off course then this film lacks the final 'punch' that it should have driven into the consciousness of the audience. Don't get me wrong, I really wanted to enjoy this film after seeing the trailers multiple times in the theatre. The cast of actors is impressive and I have previously enjoyed the stories of A.H. Homes but this film failed to engage me. I felt disappointed because I wanted more. I wish I could sing praises for THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS but cannot. If you desire to see this movie I would recommend waiting until it is released on DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: Confused Jumble
Review: American Beauty and Magnolia are fine examples of the Slice of Life/Suburban Angst genre. Funny and interesting with characters that draw you in. On the other hand The Safety of Objects shows how low the genre can sink. Uninteresting characters suffering pointlessly. Who cares about them? Certainly I don't. I see far more interesting stories in my own life and in the lives of the people around me than in this movie. Consider the subplot in which Glenn Close's character tries to win a car for her daughter. The whole idea is lifted from the documentary Hands on a Hardbody but the true life tales are so much more interesting. How did this movie get made? The stories of over a dozen main characters clumsily edited together and oozing with suburban cliches are no better than a mediocre drama student project.
Rating:
Summary: The World of Objects
Review: Arguably the best recent film about how an event is recalled, and subsequently distorted, by various people would have to be Atom Agoyan's 'The Sweet Hereafter.' There are many things that are right and good about 'The Sweet Hereafter' that Rose Troche's 'The Safety of Objects' aspires to but never quite attains.
This film tells the story of three families: the Trains, The Golds and the Christiansons. All are dealing with problems common to many families and not so common to others. Troche has the dynamics of family right but instead of keeping her scope small and concentrated, she has decided to go for the Universal, the big picture and unfortunately it is here where she stumbles.
'TSOO' wears it's heart on it's sleeve, metaphorically speaking'beginning with the title: we get attached to our 'things' and when they are broken, or thrown away or lost we feel upset, feel lost, etc. Several of the characters in this film specifically state as much thereby pounding home Troche's central theme in case any of us missed it the first time.
If Troche had stuck to the central core of the film: a horrific accident that affects all three families she would have had a tighter, stronger, more emphatic film. This plot line also features the strongest performances: Joshua Jackson, Timothy Olyphant and Jessica Campbell who excel, particularly Olyphant as a wracked with grief survivor of the accident.
'The Safety of Objects' has some good components (acting being it's strongest) but overall it just doesn't work because it strives to be something that the confines of the mise en scene simply cannot encase. You do have to give Ms. Troche points though, for risking the ridiculous in order to achieve the sublime, even though, all things being considered, she doesn't quite make it.
Rating:
Summary: SAVE YOUR MONEY, AND...
Review: buy the book instead. The book is tremendous!! Well-written and engaging. The movie is a piece of garbage. It's agonizingly obvious the director had absolutely no idea what the hell she was doing. AM Homes should sue!
Rating:
Summary: Squeezing the Cliche for All It Is Woth.
Review: From the outset, I must say that this film is bizarre. I must also say that, despite the fact that I liked it enough to give it three stars, you have seen this film before. Where? It is the same type of suburban-angst-gone-haywire plot you've seen in such films as American Beauty. If that is your sort of film, then this is your sort of film. If that is not your cup of tea, then this will not be either.
The film is the story of 4 suburban families who have much more in common than first blush would tell you. All of them are somehow intertwined with a the fate of one of the families' comatose sons. (One character was in the car that injured him, another was the boys lover, etc.) It is the story, then, of how each family copes in different ways with that, and a host of other suburbanesque goings on, like being passed up for a promotion, dealing with the possible kidnapping of a daughter, or fumbling, as an adolescent, through one's first sexual feelings.
While the film, as I've said before, takes bizarre (and often unrealistic) twists and turns in the manner of American Beauty, "The Safety of Objects" has a strangely likeable quality. Like "American Beauty," the characters and story lines are just quirky enough to grab you without being so strange as to let you go. None of the characters are overtly lovable or dispicable, but all of them are at the very least, interesting and at most, compelling.
Be that as it may, though, the film is still a bit too cliche to be of any but moderate interest. Too many films - American Beauty, Short Cuts, The Good Girl, etc. - portray the same type of 'off-the-deep-end' suburban situations that this film does better, and more convincingly, than this film does it.
In fact, it is disappointing to find out that this film is based on a collection of short stories by author A.M. Holmes, because another film called "Short Cuts" is the same idea, only involving the stories of Raymond Carver. And just as Carver is a superior writer to Holmes, "Short Cuts" is heads-and-tails superior to "The Safety of Objects."
But if you like suburbia-gone-angry-and-awry films like "American Beauty," then this film is at least worth one viewing. After all, cliches are called cliches becuase they work at least well enough to be cliches.
Rating: 
Summary: Despite the Bad Reviews, I Loved It!!!
Review: I absolutely loved this movie and highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't yet seen it. It's a wonderful collage of several suburban families who are somehow linked together although the reason is not revealed until the very end of the movie. Do yourself a favor and ignore the bad reviews and try it for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Top 3 of 2003
Review: I liked this movie a lot and I was very into it. There were a lot of characters to get to know and the movie did a good job in developing them. I liked the cast and Glenn Close did an outstanding performance. Some reviews say the movie rambled on. Maybe it did, but it held my attention! This DVD is the latest addition in my collection.
Rating:
Summary: 3 stars for the acting - 1/2 star for the plot = 2 1/2 stars
Review: I really wanted to like this film. I really did. The theatrical trailer looked promising, the ensemble cast of excellent actors excited me and the surreal quality of the cinematography was stunning. However, the film falls apart halfway through, but not for a lack of trying. All the actors give excellent performances and the direction was interesting. It was the story that was a bit thin. After the first hour the movie becomes a bit contrived and collapsed under its over ambitious weight. If I had to hear Paul's Song one more time, I swear I was going to pull out what little bit of hair I have left on my head. In its attempt to be another American Beauty-esque slice of suburban life, The Safety of Objects becomes a caricature of itself. Even though the acting is top notch it's hard to care about the characters in this incestuous (not in the true sense of the word) suburban neighborhood. Who cares that Annette was sleeping with Paul? Who cares about Jim's unexplained reason for helping Esther win a car? I quickly lost interest with the exception of the kid in love with his sister's Barbie doll. Well needed comic relief in an otherwise drab film. The only jaw dropping revelation I experienced was Esther's guilt inducing reason for keeping her comatose son alive. The Safety of Objects probably was better as a collection of short stories than one cohesive film. One of the review blurbs on the cover says "Comical!" and I agree although not in a good way. See this film for great performances from Glenn Close, Patricia Clarkson, Dermot Mulroney and the like but check out the Ice Storm, American Beauty or Magnolia for excellent examples of suburbia slice-of-life films in the intertwined multi-character plotline vein.
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