“Rare Objects” tells the story of a young woman who seeks to rebuild her life when she takes work at an antique store. She regains her confidence from the kind souls who own the shop, until those from her traumatic past begin to resurface.
For long stretches of its two-hour running time, “Rare Objects,” a story of recovery and addiction based on Kathleen Tessaro’s novel of the same name, is a heavy, somewhat slow-moving drama that seems perhaps better suited to the stage.
Julia Mayorga stars as Benita, a young woman recently discharged from a mental institution, who is slowly and carefully putting her life back together, one day and one paycheck at a time. She talks at length about her life with her loving but critical mother (Saundra Santiago); gets a low-paying but honest job at an esteemed antique dealer, where she receives compassionate treatment from the owners, Peter (Alan Cumming) and Ben (Derek Luke); and makes fast friends with Diana (Katie Holmes), an incredibly wealthy heiress whom she met at the hospital.
“Rare Objects” proceeds sluggishly, and a bit ponderously, as characters take on a staid air and say things that mean little but sound deep, like, “Some people need to be seen before they can hear.” Holmes is a generous but indiscriminate director of actors: She has the tendency, not uncommon among actors turned directors, of extending a cast of inconsistent talent a degree of latitude better reserved for the heaviest hitters. (She doesn’t have this problem with her own performance, which is both compelling and well-situated in the context of the film.)
At times, the style of the movie gets in the way of the simple effects of the drama — a couple of pointlessly showy long takes add nothing and are a distraction — while a few baffling creative decisions threaten to spoil the good elsewhere. Cumming has a particularly moving scene in which he grieves the anniversary of the death of a lover over a boozy dinner — a scene very nearly ruined by the inexplicable choice to surround him with multiple empty martini glasses, something no restaurant on earth would do.
Rare Objects (2023)
Directed by: Katie Holmes
Starring: Julia Mayorga, Katie Holmes, Saundra Santiago, Candy Buckley, Giancarlo Vidrio, Derek Luke, Alan Cumming, Jimi Stanton, Olivia Gilliatt, Rose Lane Sanfilippo, Ashley Noel Jones
Screenplay by: Katie Holmes, Phaedon A. Papadopoulos
Production Design by: Michael Fitzgerald
Cinematography by: Lisa Rinzler
Costume Design by: Brie Welch
Set Decoration by: Beth Kushnick
MPAA Rating: R for language and some drug use.
Distributed by: IFC Films
Release Date: April 14, 2023
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