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Plot Summary
Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. Director Gary Hustwit (Helvetica) looks at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets, profiling the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It's about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability. Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world's most influential product designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?
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Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
76%- Reviews Counted: 17
- Fresh: 13
- Rotten: 4
- Average Rating: 6.6/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Fresh: As sleek and handsome as any of the new and improved household items it exhibits.
Fresh: You'll never look at your next toothbrush (or your next any product) in quite the same way after watching this astute, elegant inquiry into the purpose and process of industrial 
design, Objectified.
Fresh: Witty, engaging and exquisitely crafted.
Rotten: For all its intriguing observations, the documentary struggles to develop a strong argument about its subject, or to demonstrate the hidden cultural power of design in such a way as to make the subject compelling to those without a prior interest.
Customer Reviews
It's no "Helvetica" - but it's well worth watching/owning
I was lucky enough to attend the "Objectified" screening in Chicago, and I must say… as much as I really wanted to be in love with the film, it just didn’t grab me the way "Helvetica" did. This could be largely due to the subject matter; I’m a graphic designer, and Helvetica (the font) has a very special place in my heart. But I think the issue I had with "Objectified" was more on a filmmaking level than based solely on the subject matter.
To me the most interesting thing about "Helvetica" was the depth in which designers would go to explain the subtle nuances, the importance, and their love of something that to most people comes off as incredibly trivial. And after all sorts of poetic musings about a designer’s love for a typeface, the film would jump to another designer with a radically opposing view; hatred for Helvetica so deep that one designer actually blamed the font for the war in Vietnam.
"Objectified", on the other hand, really didn’t offer up a whole lot of point/counter point, nor did I feel like I got meaningful insight into the minds of some of the world’s top industrial designers. I left "Helvetica" feeling inspired, confused, educated and cynical all at the same time. I left "Objectified" needing more.
That being said, I strongly recommend everyone view the film and formulate their own opinion. The director, Gary Hustwit, has something special going on, creating films about subjects that have a very niche audience, but at the same time appeal to everyone. We all use products every day that we barely think about, and these products are the fruits of some design team’s labor. Supporting an independent film that gives these designers a forum to explain why they do, what they do and how they do it is really important to sustaining design as an art form (as well as sustaining independent filmmaking).
Great film
I drove from Lexington, KY at 2pm to attend a screening with Gary at 7pm in Atlanta, GA, and then drove back to work the next morning at 4am. I was obviously very hopeful about the film and I wasn't let down. The film thoughtfully tells a brilliant story of many designers with many objectives in many industries, from Dieter Rams’ and Jonathan Ives’ thoughtful approach to simplicity and function to the more stylistic approach of Hella Jongerius’ design for personal expression. I think that one thing that this film signals is the desire and the need for designers to be understood in a world of quantified metrics, engineering, and programming. Designers understand the value of not just the message, but how the message is communicated; not just the object’s ability to work, but how the object works with you and how it expresses itself, its brand, and its user. However, experience is hard to measure and brand communication is difficult to report on a balance sheet, so designers seem always at odds with “business”. Some of the critics of the film at the screening weren't necessarily criticizing the film as much as they were asking for more: "Why didn't you discuss X?", "Why did you leave out Y?", "Why did you not mention Z?" The truth is that designers have felt ostracized and slightly abused by some businesses, and I believe that we crave representation and understanding, and though this film was great, it was only one film. Telling the full story of design would take more than 76 minutes. I think that Gary’s effort is an inspiring first step to tell the story of the design profession and convey what “design” really means, and I hope he will continue or release more of the cutting room floor footage and maybe another film. Thanks Gary.
Inspirational for the next generation of designers and thinkers.
Hustwit's documentary takes an exciting new look into product design. The film analyzes how some design went wrong, some went right, and presents new ideas in sustainability, disposability, while making products people will want to keep for the rest of their lives. The film challenges future designers to take control over the plight of pollution permanent designs have brought us to.
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