by JOANNE LATIMER

Just how heavy can a movie get? The Safety of Objects doesn't lighten up, not for a second. This is not a movie for happy people who want to stay that way. Like its close cinematic cousins American Beauty and The Ice Storm, its characters are messed-up neighbours with an amplified notion of their own suffering. The sense of foreboding is almost unbearable. Naturally, I loved it.

The hand wringing begins immediately. We see a recalcitrant teenage daughter locked in a grudge with her mother (Glenn Close), who dotes on her other child, a paralyzed teenage son. We soon meet the neighbours: Dermot Mulroney goes MIA from his law firm when he doesn't make partner, and his family doesn't seem to give a shit. Patricia Clarkson is in divorce hell, while Mary Kay Place is flummoxed by her ageing body. As if there aren't enough characters to chart here, there's also a hot handyman (Timothy Olyphant) lurking in the bushes and angry kids playing in bedrooms.

Director Rose Troche, who charmed us with a romantic comedy about lesbians called Go Fish, gets our guts in a winch. At first we think something really bad is going to happen, but Troche trumps us by slowly revealing the catastrophe that has already happened. Troche's slight-of-hand with the film's structure is impressive: we knew the broad sketch of the catastrophe (paralyzed son), but we haven't a clue how and why. Relief comes, for us, only when we can understand the crazy way that these people process their grief. Previously inexplicable behaviour from these neighbours eventually makes sense. Some people won't want to wait for the pieces to fall in place, but it's worth hunkering down for the pay-off.

"It's the life you've made - don't act like it's not yours," says Clarkson to Mulroney, but squared directly at the audience. We also get the slow-feed lecture about clinging to objects - cars, dolls, whatever - instead of building lives. With themes like these, The Safety of Objects will make you squirm. Give it a chance and appreciate its downbeat charms.

The Safety of Objects opens Friday, April 18

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