There are two kinds of people.

To some, objects are the root of clutter and materialism.

To others, objects are a way to keep a treasured record of their lives.

Synopsis

OBJECTS follows three unique people who have held onto something that gained incredible meaning for them over decades.

They came upon these things almost accidentally, at a special instant in their lives, or moment shared with someone they loved, or would come to love.

They keep objects as a way to hold on to time and life itself.

FILMMAKER STATEMENT

The idea to make Objects came from a phone conversation I had back in 2014 with a long-time friend and collaborator, Robert Krulwich.

We mused about how we had saved objects for years that seemed precious to us, yet had no intrinsic value. Often, we came to own these things accidentally… mementos from an important moment in our lives or objects that evoke a time shared with a loved one. Over the years, these objects gained great significance; some we had each held onto for many decades. To us ‘keepers’ this seemed… natural.

Of course, not everyone shares this quirk. Take both our spouses, who do not hold onto things from the past. For them, objects simply have no resonance or meaning.

Why? What was it that made certain things so important to some people? 

A DIFFERENT APPROACH

This film is a dramatic departure from my previous work. I have spent most of my career as a journalist and filmmaker covering science. In making Objects, I avoided a “science-y” approach: There are no experts, scientific voices or authorities (psychologists, psychiatrists or neuroscientists) explaining what drives some to be ‘keepers.’ Instead, we hear the emotional stories of people’s relationships with objects and the significance each possession holds for them.

Another difference in style was not “knowing the answers before asking the questions.” That’s what a good science journalist does whenever possible. Here, the film itself is about finding answers. And sometimes not finding them.

The People in Objects

The film focuses on three main characters. Each of their stories holds a particular theme which unfolds and weaves with one another. Sometimes they collide.

There’s Rick Rawlins and his sugar egg— the emotional heart of the movie. Quixotic and dignified, his only goal is to keep his most prized objects safe and close at hand. To Rick, preserving this egg is a way to keep his identity intact.

Robert Krulwich is our philosopher-guide who explains how the passage of time has always gripped him with melancholy. As a twelve-year-old, he tiptoed into the Silverblatt's bathroom on New Year's Eve, closed the door, and wept for his lost and fleeting youth. Robert keeps a clump of grass that reminds him of a special moment in his life. It is an object that helps him time-travel back to his younger self. Robert tells us how past feelings of love and loss can be captured in objects, and how each holds its own story.

And then there’s Heidi Julavits, who can't stand to see other people discard objects which, clearly (to her), have a story hidden in them. Searching for a sweater on eBay, she stumbles upon an estate sale of a dead French actress’s belongings and soon finds herself buying them. Why? At first for the mystery of it; the satisfaction of piecing together a narrative. Call it vicarious nostalgia. But she also collects to preserve the woman’s past, fearing that these things will lose meaning. “Just watching them get…atomized seemed like a second death,” she says.

Through these stories we touch on something important here— the crux of a keeper’s dilemma. There is societal pressure to downsize our belongings, to free ourselves from physical encumbrances. To keepers, physical things are a connection to their experiences and disposing of them would mean losing a bit of their deeper past. So what is wrong with a little keeping to stave off the inevitable toll of time?

At one point in Objects, I tell Robert, “many people might say, get over it,” meaning, toss out his clump of grass and move on.

Robert answers: “When you’re a 70-year-old, to remember the feeling of being a 15-year-old and to be still delighted at your 15-year-old self, knowing everything you know since. That’s not a bad way to be. I think it's a rich way to be… Why would I want to get over it?”

Why indeed? The answer is that Objects isn’t really a film about things. It is about time and our own mortality. About holding on to our place in the world; our identity, self, and sense of belonging. About the people who we love and have loved. Objects represent the past, reminders of the moments that make us who we are in the present.

-Vincent Liota, June 2021