It's OK
A watchable, well made and well acted film about selfish people trying to take care of their dying father. I found most of the characters to be faily unlikable, the Squid and the Whale/big city intellectual/loveless types, always whining about how busy they are with their professoring and dealing with much less important things than caring and giving attention to someone who is sick (i.e. real life). It's fine, there's nothing really wrong with the film, but it's slight and decidedly not a "good time", and fairly devoid of anyone I'd want to meet in real life.

Born to be savage: a life time penalty
The film handles brillantly a common challenge that many of us have to face: what to do with a demented parent.
The general problem is generic, the individual circumstances vary according to our situation in life. Money helps. A functional family life helps. Benevolent geography helps.
Linney and Hoffman are among the best contemporary actors, and they give us two people with enough problems of their own, who didn't need a demented father dropping from the sky on them, which happens due to the death of his life partner. They are siblings from a 'dysfunctional' family, the father had disappeared from their life for 20 years, he is remembered as unloving and abusive, and he does behave in a way that one would not want to meet him in real life. His 'kids' are struggling middle aged intellectuals, with pityful emotional lives, but still hopeful for improvement. (You get to hear Hoffman sing a Brecht song in German; consider this a bonus.)
Some underdeveloped mind had classified this film as a 'comedy'. That was what we expected when we started watching the film, but we soon realized how far off that label is. I mention this because it gives a good contrast to one of the strong features of the film and of its characters: there is a sense of humor in the midst of sadness. The Savages definitely would have deserved at least 2 acting award nominations at the last Oscars.

Hoffman and Linney at their best!
Laura Linney well deserved the Oscar nomination she got for this film.

And Philip Seymour Hoffman, as usual, delivers a character subtly different from every other role I've seen him in.

Hoffman is one of the most amazing actors gracing our screen these days! Total confident living in the present moment, emotional openness without a hint of bathos.

Where Does Theatre End And Real Life Begin?
"It's the pleasure of a true-to-life tale told by a director and actors who've sunk so deep into their movie together you wonder how they ever surfaced. You live with Jon and Wendy Savage gratefully, even when they can't always do the same." Manohla Dargis

"They mess you up, your mum and dad," Philip Larkin wrote, says Peter Travers. The two Savages, Wendy and Jon are as screwed up as they come, but they are likable, wonderfully human people. Wendy lives in NYC and is a temp while trying to write plays, and John is a professor of Brecht in Buffalo- and yes, they do shuffle off to Buffalo. Wendy has a married lover and Jon a Polish girlfriend, but he is not able to commit, and her visa expires and she leaves. Their father, with whom they have been estranged most of their life has dementia and needs care. Here they come to the rescue- they travel to Arizona to bring him back to Buffalo and a nursing home. All the trials and tribulations of caring for a father, with whom you have little in common, who probably physically abused you, and who can still get to you in those little ways.

The film of the days in the life of a man who is dying. Lenny, played by Philip Bosco is a stage actor who has completed 40 films, a true actor. Wendy as played by Laura Linney is as always a study in the definition of pure acting, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, as Jon, who is a giant in our acting industry more than bring this film together.

This is a movie of appreciation for the nature that goes into making us who we are. Because as brother and sister Jon and Wendy are able to bring it all home. Not enough superlatives can be stated about the acting and the three actors who make this film. This is also a film of humour, of the everyday issues and problems that raise their head and the circumstances that make us laugh. There are no answers in this film. How do you find a nursing home for your demented father? How do you make that room one you want to live in? How do you provide love when there wasn't any at the beginning? Tamara Jenkins, the writer and director has provided a story that none of us want to live, but one we all need to see.

"Jenkins and her three astonishing actors create comic devastation out of situations as serious as a mental meltdown and picking out just the right nursing home. There is nothing cozy about The Savages. Bosco, a theater legend, seizes his juiciest film role and makes every shocking moment count. And Linney is an amazement, showing vulnerability and strength at war for a character's soul. As for Hoffman, is this his year, or what?" Peter Travers

This film is one that is so poignant, and we can all see some vestiges of our families in this tale. There have been few films that show us what real life is like when someone in our family has dementia. This film portrays that reality with humour and finally with understanding.

Highly Recommended. prisrob 04-26-08

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

You Can Count on Me

Capturing the Drama of Our Everyday Simple Existence
How we all come to grips with our mortality is often previewed in how we manage the care of our elders. When that elder care is focused on a parent, as it is in Tamara Jenkins's brilliant film THE SAVAGES, it not only strikes chords with individual philosophies, but is also reveals the intricacies of family relationships that come into play in coping with the final days of a parent's life. Though there is little story to this film, this is a character study about isolation, loneliness, and need that will touch the hearts of sensitive viewers.

Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) is a frustrated unpublished playwright working as a temp, a bright woman whose insecurities limit her emotional activity to an affair with a 'safe' married man Larry (Peter Friedman). Jon Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman), her older brother, is a professor of philosophy who is writing a book on the theater of the absurd of Bertolt Brecht while living in Buffalo with a Polish woman, Kasia (Cara Seymour), who, because Jon does not wish to commit to marriage, is forcing his only emotional tie to return to Poland when her Visa expires. Wendy and Jon were deserted by their mother at an early age, left in the care of their abusive father Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco), and both siblings have distanced themselves from their father now living in Sun City, Arizona with his girlfriend of twenty years. Lenny's girlfriend dies and the signs of Lenny's rapidly encroaching dementia force Wendy and Jon to fly to Arizona to 'make arrangements' for their demented father. Coming together under duress the two siblings are forced to confront their own frustrations together with the realities of placing Lenny in a nursing home. Lenny is moved from Arizona to Buffalo, NY and the manner in which Jon and Wendy cope with the new 'family' arrangement raises problems of guilt, memories of their childhood, resentment, and ultimately the manner in which they continue with their lives.

The film could have easily become a diatribe against current nursing home conditions, but instead Jenkins through her superb script and direction levels the playing field, allowing the family frustrations to play out in equal time with the vantage point of the caregivers (well played by David Zayas, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Margo Martindale, Tonye Patano, Nancy Lenehan, Tijuana Ricks, and others). But the real power of this film comes from the bravura performances by Linney, Hoffman, and Bosco. These three actors can do more with silences and facial and body expressions that just about anyone on the screens today. Watching these gifted actors at their trade makes for a stunning film experience and one that shakes us all a bit to think about things we don't wish to consider - death, care of the elderly, and finding life in a world that usually runs a bit on the crazy side. Another quality aspect of this film is the quiet, mood enhancing musical score by Stephen Trask, who manages to combine childlike songs with simple line piano music to underscore the intimate moods of the story. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, April 08