'The Savages' explores difficulty of caring for aging parents
By Rachel Hanes, Staff Writer
February 1, 2008 | 3 p.m.
"The Savages" is a film of rare breed. It addresses an ultimately depressing subject while being witty and offbeat. It is an unexpected film that succeeds in tugging at the audience's heartstrings while keeping things simple.
The film tells the story of the Savage family as the family's peaceful estrangement is upset by the father’s deteriorating health. Wendy (Laura Linney) and Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) are siblings who live separate lives in New York as aspiring writers. Their father, Lenny (Philip Bosco), who abandoned them as children and lives far off in Arizona, falls victim to dementia, a brain dysfunction that renders him helpless. Wendy and Jon are soon called upon to take care of their father as dementia takes its toll on him.
Wendy and Jon, while they are sorry for their father’s poor luck, are less than thrilled to travel across the country to aid the man who left them as children. An unspoken obligation exists, however, that children must take care of their elders, so Wendy and Jon begin the grueling task of trying to help their father.
Wendy and Jon decide to place Lenny in a nursing home that both financially and emotionally weighs on the siblings. While they try to juggle their already less than desirable lives, Wendy and Jon struggle to cope with their father’s foreboding death and the residual emotional baggage from their childhoods.
Although hospital visits and chemical imbalances of both the young and the old may be recipes for a dreary drama, “The Savages” is anything but an overstuffed tragedy. Although the dramatic elements are a large part of the story, the film is also full of endearing moments and subtle humor that only make the film more touching and realistic.
Although the Savages’ exact situation is not terribly common, it is more than identifiable. No family is perfect, and life is full of tragedy. Allowing the audience to identify themselves with a film and ultimately attach themselves is the mark of a truly influential film. “The Savages” is able to do just that.
The cast is a large factor in this phenomenal film. Linney is the obvious standout with her ability to make Wendy the most realistic of characters, a wannabe playwright who is caught in an affair with a married man. Linney plays the clinically depressed (and perhaps a bit insane) character with such sincerity that she often is more tragic than her dying father or more endearing than her cry-baby brother.
In the role of Jon, Hoffman is heartbreaking but hysterical, which is only to be expected from an actor such as Hoffman. One of the only negative aspects of “The Savages” is that Hoffman is not as prominent on-screen as one would like him to be.
Bosco also brings an amazing performance that manages to make a drop-out dad into an aged man who inadvertently begs for sympathy from the audience. Audience members, no matter how hard they may try to hate Lenny, will not be able to help but give him that sympathy.
Tamara-Jenkins’ writing and directing is another impressive aspect of the film. She uses such simplicity yet allows her film to speak volumes. Settings, such as the urban landscape of New York or the lonely room of a nursing home, are as cold, empty and dreary as they should be.
It is well understood by Tamara-Jenkins' direction that nursing homes are the last place that a child would want to put his or her parent. The sadness that accompanies the act of committing a fully grown man to be taken care of in a facility such as the nursing home in “The Savages” seems overwhelming. Tamara-Jenkins invites audiences to see this, and despite the depressing visions that are bound to follow, one will want to keep watching.
“The Savages” correlates simple structure with a simple soundtrack that is quirky, though slightly irritating. While the peculiar indie-folk sounds may be useful in some scenes, it seems inappropriate in other scenes that garner powerful sentiment. Uncomplicated piano is also used in emotionally intense scenes and is more fitting than any forced folk ever could be.
Few current films make moviegoing an experience that is as enjoyable as it is affecting. “The Savages,” through memorable performances and a simple yet provoking story, is both entertaining and striking to the core. One should not be surprised to see audience members phoning home to shoot their fathers an “I love you” after experiencing the roller-coaster ride that is the Savage family.
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Speakeasy Rating: A
Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes
MPAA Rating: R for sexuality and some language
Genre: Drama