The Safety Of Objects: Synopsis

The secret isn't holding on to what you've got. It's letting go of what you've lost.

In a modest suburban neighborhood, Paul Gold (Joshua Jackson) lies in his bedroom in a coma, nursed by his mother, Esther (Glenn Close). Esther dutifully tends to Paul day and night, and in doing so has distanced herself from her husband Howard (Robert Klein) and teenage daughter Julie (Jessica Campbell). In an attempt to help her mother accept reality, Julie enters Esther in a local radio contest, hoping to win, along with the prize, her mother's notice. Meanwhile, after years of putting his job first, Jim Train (Dermot Mulroney) feels his family; especially his efficient wife Susan (Moira Kelly), no longer needs him. He tries to reconnect with his son Jake (Alex House), but Jake is preoccupied with romantic feelings for his younger sister's twelve-inch plastic doll.

The Train's neighbor, Helen Christianson (Mary Kay Place), feeling older and less desirable, tries new products to keep her feeling young but succeeds only in alienating her husband, who loves her as she is. Helen's good friend Annette Jennings (Patricia Clarkson), in the midst of a messy divorce, struggles to provide for her two children while dealing with a loss far greater than that of her ex-husband's financial security. Randy (Timothy Olyphant), the neighborhood's favorite handyman, is also dealing with a loss, one he is desperately trying to move past.

When you rely on a new car, the latest exercise equipment, and a child's doll to provide comfort and protection from life's hard realities, where do you turn when the safety of objects fail? Over the course of four days, these families will open up and lean on one another, sharing their burdens and joys, and help each other remember, it is the people we know and love ... not the objects we own ... that provide real hope and security to face whatever life throws at us.