Rare Objects: A quiet little gem

Rare Objects (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and drug use

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming platforms

By Derrick Bang

This gentle, endearingly delicate character drama draws its heart from the Japanese art of kintsugi, wherein — when done properly — an object becomes more beautiful because it’s broken, and then lovingly repaired.

 

Benita (Julia Mayorga, left) happily joins Diana (Katie Holmes) for an impulsive
afternoon away from work.

The “object” in this case is Benita Parla (Julia Mayorga), a university student introduced on the day she leaves a New York psychiatric facility. She checked herself in some weeks (months?) earlier, not because of drugs or alcohol, but due to PTSD and anxiety.

The reason, as we gradually learn via fleeting flashbacks: She was raped in a trendy bar restroom, by a “nice guy” who, after flirty banter and several drinks, suddenly turned into a monster. “Tell anybody,” he breathes into her ear, following the assault, “and I’ll find you.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he whispers “I’m sorry” … as if that somehow makes up for the attack.

 

This isn’t actress Katie Holmes’ first time in the director’s chair, but it’s her best thus far … probably because she didn’t give the central role to herself. She also co-wrote the script with Phaedon A. Papadopoulos, based on Kathleen Tessaro’s 2016 novel of the same title. But it’s an adaptation in name and character dynamic only; very little remains of the book.

 

(That isn’t any sort of problem here, but one does wonder how Tessaro feels.)

 

Benita, having abandoned any thought of resuming college, returns to the tiny Queens apartment that she shares with her single mother, Aymee (Sandra Santiago), a Latin American immigrant who works hard to make ends meet. Benita hasn’t told her mother about what happened: a point we grasp not through any direct dialogue, but via inference. 

 

We eventually realize that going off to college in the first place likely was a point of friction between mother and daughter; Benita recognizes that admitting her recent crisis would merely validate her mother’s initial fears. 

 

Much of this story unfolds in precisely that manner, with Holmes and Papadopoulos trusting us to keep up, and fill in such gaps; that’s the hallmark of a sharp script. Credit also goes to Mayorga, who handles such scenes persuasively; her richly nuanced expressions and body language often tell us more than dialogue would.

 

Benita is at wit’s end: still fragile, haunted by the memory of her attack — the film reveals just enough, via those flashbacks, and avoids exploitation — and terrified by the burden of student loans coming due. Aymee is patient and encouraging, but chooses not to push. (I’m not sure that feels right, but it’s a minor quibble.)

 

self/less: Absorbing sci-fi analysis of identity

self/less (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang

It’s an old, old lesson: When something seems too good to be true ... it is.

At first blush, scripters David and Àlex Pastor have concocted what feels like a sinister medical thriller, of the sort that put physician-turned-novelist Robin Cook on the map back in the late 1970s. Director Tarsem Singh keeps the tone atmospheric during a first act that raises all sorts of intriguing questions, with the New Orleans setting adding an unsettling, almost-but-not-quite indiscernible layer of tension.

Having finally discovered that the woman (Natalie Martinez) and little girl (Jaynee-Lynne
Kinchen) in his odd visions are actual people, Damian (Ryan Reynolds) tries to make
sense of an already fantastic situation that has gotten even stranger. Trouble is, plenty
of people have no interest in allowing him the luxury of such answers...

Then — also much like a novel by Cook or Michael Crichton — things shift into a different gear, and suddenly we’re in pure Hitchcock territory: our hearts engaged with a protagonist pursued by shadowy unknowns, who cannot — for reasons related to his plight — turn to official authorities.

All of which is even more interesting because we’re not sure we should like our not-so-innocent hero.

The result is an economical thriller that benefits from the Pastor brothers’ carefully crafted narrative. They avoid serious mistakes, and everything holds together pretty well. And if we’re able to anticipate a conclusion which, in the third act, seems increasingly inevitable ... well, that’s okay. It’s the proper way to end this story, and we exit the theater quite satisfied.

Billionaire New York City-based industrialist Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley) has made no allies on his way to the top, and he still enjoys crushing anybody who gets in his way. He’s a selfish, arrogant man with no family connections, having long ago lost touch with his activist daughter, Claire (Michelle Dockery), even though her volunteer-staffed office is only a few blocks away in the same city.

Damian’s only real connection is with lifelong friend and right-hand man Martin O’Neil (Victor Garber): also the only person who knows that his boss is close to losing the one battle he cannot win, against the cancer that is eating him alive.

But an unexpected option exists, courtesy of a clandestine organization led by Albright (Matthew Goode), who offers a radical form of immortality to hand-picked clients with the wealth and resources to make it practical. Albright has developed the technology to transfer an individual’s mind into a new, lab-cloned body. The process, dubbed “shedding” — in a nod to the way reptiles shed their skin — can put Damian into the body of a healthy male at the prime of life.

He jumps at the opportunity.

But the process is illegal, of course, and the catch is that Damian Hale cannot return to his old life. As far as the world is concerned, he has died; Albright supplies a new identity, carefully funded by Damian’s fortune, and “Edward” begins his new existence in New Orleans. The transition is euphoric: a fast car, faster women and the casual vigor that comes from a well-toned body in excellent condition.