Review of “The Savages”
Grumpy old man Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco) makes a point of his displeasure with his nursing home carer by writing it on the bathroom wall with his own excrement. Thus begins Tamara Jenkins second feature The Savages. When what seems an act of defiance begins to look more and more like the onset of dementia, Lenny’s long-abandoned middle-aged children Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) are forced to unite to find him an understanding nursing home.
With a screenplay drawn from her own experiences with a parent with dementia, Jenkins has crafted an irony-rich slow-burning black comedy that should appeal to the same audience that dug Diablo Cody’s writing for Juno. As middling theatre professor with writers block Jon, Hoffman gets the film’s better lines. He is so resistant to any action in his life he lets his long-term girlfriend be deported rather than marry her, and it is only his failed playwright sister’s guilt and nagging that force him to assist her in caring for their father. 
But care is a subjective term, coming from two siblings so rich in neuroses and ignorant of the world around them. Rarely have two such self-obsessed awful characters been such fun to watch on screen, but with Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the roles, how could they not be. Constantly working, and often on meaty and interesting parts, these are two of the most consistent actors working today, and it’s hard to believe they haven’t paired up before.
Their abrasive interactions are at turns bitter and funny. Jenkins is a literate and literary writer, which means some of her funniest lines will be completely wasted on great chunks of the audience (and I’m including myself in that). She is interested in the small and awkward moments in life that don’t always make for great cinema, which may be why it took her ten years to get her second feature up. She makes fun if predictable music choices to beef up the film’s irony quotient and her fuzzy camerawork adds to the sense of claustrophobia of middle America that forms part of the Savage’s malaise.
The Savages joins films like Little Miss Sunshine and Running with Scissors in a growing field of films exploring the dysfunction of the children of the baby boom generation. Its humour is wry rather than laugh-out-loud, and surprisingly uplifting considering its dour source.
CK
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