The Safety Of Objects

THE SAFETY OF OBJECTS

Rating: D

American Ugly.

I blame myself, really. I've a habit of attending movies I know little or nothing about, based only on the Moviefone synopsis or a single viewing of the trailer. For art house films, this can be deadly. For every Red or The Quiet American or even He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not waiting to be gloriously discovered, there are two or three absolute dregs of filmdom lying in ambush, whose sole purpose seems to be proving that any script, no matter how wretched, can get produced. By the time the guy three rows in front of me bugged out after fifteen minutes, I'd already realized I'd made a tremendous mistake. But hope springs eternal, and I've only walked out on a movie once in my life, so I stayed until the bitter end. Fortunately, art house popcorn is the best around.

Whether this movie is supposed to be a drama or a comedy, only director Rose Troche knows for sure. There are too many truly ridiculous scenes for anyone to take it as serious drama, but at the same time much of the subject matter (e.g., a son in a perpetual coma, child abduction, intense marital strife) is hardly what I'd consider fodder for side-splitting humor. And it sure ain't satire, either, unless it's really, really bad satire.

As with many films featuring an ensemble cast, you have to look hard to detect any evidence of a plot. Mostly, things just "happen" to characters, and the way they react is supposed to provide deep insights into their mental condition. Glenn Close (who really should've known better) plays the mother of the aforementioned comatose son. Her teenage daughter (Jessica Campbell) is chronically hostile and morose, ostensibly because she's jealous of the attention Mom devotes to her unconscious brother. There's a big to-do about Close "deciding she really wants to do it" and "being away for a while," without specifying what "it" is. So we're thinking along the lines of climbing Mt. Everest or sex reassignment surgery. Turns out "it" is participating in one of those contests where people hold onto a car and the one who holds on longest wins it. I think it's supposed to be satire, but the whole segment is so drawn out any potential humor gets crushed out of it early like juice from a lemon. Then there's Dermot Mulroney, a workaholic lawyer who's passed over for a partnership in the firm for a less-deserving co-worker. When he storms out of the office in a huff, no one even realizes he's gone. Trust me when I say it sounds funnier than it is onscreen. His wife is your stereotypical bitch, and the only joy you'll derive from watching her scenes is through consoling yourself that you're not the one married to her. Worst of all is Mulroney's adolescent son, who's in love with his younger sister's Barbie doll and imagines it speaks to him. In one scene, he licks his finger and rubs it between the nude doll's legs. The doll coos amorously, "Oooh! It's about time." Half the people reading this probably think I'm kidding.

There are plenty more dysfunctional characters where those came from, each sure to make the inhabitants of American Beauty seem downright normal. The only other one I'll mention specifically is "Sam." I saw Sam and thought, "Okay - young boy with a slender build." Then later on they start calling Sam a she, and suddenly the actor starts to look familiar and I think, "Aw shit. Not again." Yep, it's Panic Room all over again, with actress Kristen Stewart playing a girl who looks like a boy. Maybe next time I'll get it right, but I'm not optimistic. The whole movie draws to a close with Campbell strumming her guitar and singing some saccharine nonsense about love or baby ducks or something, while all the people who were previously throwing carving knives at each other snuggle together in loving reconciliation. To think what I would've missed had I walked out early.