(rated R, 121 mins.)
It seems multiple story lines of three days in the life of three characters is the present Hollywood rage (“The Hours”). This one is four days in the life of a suburban neighborhood. Paul Gold (Joshua Jackson) lies in a coma, nursed by his mother (Glenn Close) whom, in doing so, has distanced herself from her husband (Robert Klein) and teenage daughter (Jessica Campbell). A stone’s throw away and neighbor (Patricia Clarkson) is battling a messy divorce all the while trying to budget her two children’s expenses. Meanwhile, Jim Train (Dermot Mulroney) begins to realize that all the while he’s been married to his job, his wife runs the family just fine without him. And finally, Mary Kay Place portrays a woman bored by her husband, looks for somebody to bring her back to life. Could she have found it in the gardener (Timothy Olyphant)? The movie has shades of “American Beauty” meets the “Ice Storm’ which can’t be bad thing considering this is the worst acting collectively by a cast. But these neighbors find ‘safety in objects’ their possessions (a doll, a car, etc.) that they hold dear in a life of emptiness, so while they don’t work, the premise does. Well, sort of.