123 min | R | April 14, 2023 | IFC Films
A young woman recovering from a trauma she won’t name takes a job at a Manhattan antiques shop and starts piecing herself back together among the broken treasures. Katie Holmes directs with obvious care and earnest sympathy. The patience reads as caution, and the film never stops being polite to its own pain.
Benita Parla works at a high-end antiques shop in Manhattan. She is recovering from a trauma she refuses to name and rebuilding a life her body and mind keep dragging her back from. The shop becomes a refuge where broken and beautiful objects get appraised, repaired, and sold. Katie Holmes adapts Kathleen Tessaro’s novel into a film about the labor of putting yourself back together. The rare objects of the title are the people, not the antiques.
Julia Mayorga plays Benita with a wariness that never fully relaxes. She holds her body like a person bracing for the next blow. Katie Holmes plays Diana Van der Laar, a wealthy and unstable young woman who becomes Benita’s friend and mirror. Alan Cumming plays shop owner Peter Kessler with a warmth that gives the film its few moments of ease. Saundra Santiago plays Benita’s mother Aymee with a worry that reads as both love and pressure. The performances commit, but the script keeps stranding them in scenes that announce their themes instead of dramatizing them.
Holmes directs from a screenplay she wrote with Phaedon A. Papadopoulos. She shoots the antiques shop with a soft, amber light that turns the clutter into something tactile and safe. The contrast with the cold blues of Benita’s hospital memories is the film’s clearest visual idea. The editing is the problem. Scenes hold past their natural end, and the structure circles the same emotional beats without building momentum. The deliberate pacing reads as caution rather than control.
Holmes wants to treat trauma with patience and respect, and that intention is honest. The film mistakes slowness for depth. It gestures at class, addiction, and recovery without committing to any of them fully enough to land. There is a tender, specific film buried inside this material about the work of healing. This version stays too gentle with itself to find it.