November 24, 2007 -- “The Savages” is a bittersweet dramedy about two siblings forming an uneasy alliance in order to care for their disabled, estranged father. The story is filled with the things you don't really want to think about, a parent losing his mind to dementia, wearing diapers, having to put him in a nursing home. The two siblings don't get along all that well and their lives are pretty messy. One of them has trouble accepting the situation her father is in. This would be just another one of those stories about an artist with an unhappy childhood and a dysfuntional family, but it is a little funnier, warmer, sweeter and touching than most such stories.

Laura Linney stars as Wendy Savage, a struggling playwright in New York's East Village. Wendy works as a temp, but writes plays and applies for grants with office supplies stolen from her employers. She finds out her father, Lenny (Philip Bosco of “Freedomland”) living in Sun City, Arizona, is losing it. She and her brother, Jon, (Philip Seymour Hoffman of “Mission Impossible III”) go to Arizona to take care of the situation. They determined that Lenny has lost his house and is no longer capable of taking care of himself. Jon goes back home to Buffalo to find a nursing home, while Wendy takes care of her father and gets him ready to move to Buffalo. Jon, who turns out to be surprisingly competent for a somewhat dissheveled bachelor college professor, finds a nursing home, but Wendy isn't satisfied with it. She tries to find a better one, but finally has to admit that her father can't meet the admission requirements for more upscale assisted living facilities.

Wendy also has trouble with her relationship with her lover, a married neighbor, Larry (Peter Friedman of “Freedomland”). Larry brings Wendy's pet cat and other stuff out to Buffalo, but Wendy is restless. When Larry points out Wendy's rather obvious commitment issues, he is sent packing. Jon has his own comitment issues as he says goodbye to his longtime girlfriend, Kasia (Cara Seymour) who is headed back to Poland because her visa has expired. He could marry her, but can't quite bring himself to do it.

While the film is slow moving, it does have a lot of nice scenes, such as when Wendy confides with a nursing home worker, who reads her play. Jon is careful to hide his emotions but cries when Kasia cooks eggs for him and when he talks to her on the phone. There is an awkward scene when Jon and Wendy talk to their father about what to do if he goes into a coma or dies. The parting scenes between Wendy and Jon and Larry are sweet. At the end there is at least hope that the dark cloud of an unhappy childhood is at last passing. Writer-Director Tamara Jenkins (“Slums of Beverly Hills”) does a nice job of balancing the bitter, the sweet and the humor, avoiding the pitfalls of extremes. The lighting is handled nicely too, from the brilliant radiance of Sun City to the dreary winter of Buffalo, to the harsh florescents of the nursing home. The acting by Hoffman and Linney is brilliant. Ordinarily, Linney plays annoying characters. This one is a lot less annoying than most of them. This film rates a B.

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Copyright © 2007 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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