Nostalgia

Music video director and occasional feature filmmaker Mark Pellington (The Mothman Prophecies) helms this mopey ensemble drama about grieving people taking stock of the objects that define their lives. The opening movement focuses on an insurance agent (John Ortiz) who catalogs possessions and collects life stories with a detached sense of satisfaction. From there, we follow a widow (Ellen Burstyn) as she sifts through the ashes of her burned-down house, and Nostalgia keeps playing narrative tag until landing on a sports collectibles merchant (Jon Hamm) and his sister (Catherine Keener) as they deal with deaths in the family. An intimate yet expansive examination of the ways that objects intertwine with memories to both obscure and reveal our true selves, Nostalgia wins all the awards for good intentions, but the film rarely hits a note that isn’t false. In short, Pellington is no Atom Egoyan, but then neither is Atom Egoyan anymore.