THE SAVAGES, directed by Tamara Jenkins, starring Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco and Peter Friedman is an irreverent look at family, love and mortality as seen through the lens of one of modern life’s most bewildering and challenging experiences: when adult siblings find themselves plucked from their everyday, self-centred lives to care for an estranged elderly parent. The last thing the two Savage siblings ever wanted to do was look back at their difficult family history. Having wriggled their way out from beneath their father’s domineering thumb, they are now firmly cocooned in their own complicated lives. Wendy (Academy Award® nominee Laura Linney) is a struggling East Village playwright, AKA a temp who spends her days applying for grants, stealing office supplies and dating her very married neighbour. Jon (Academy Award® winner Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a neurotic college professor writing books on obscure subjects in Buffalo. Then comes the call that informs them that the father they have long feared and avoided, Lenny Savage (Tony Award® winner Philip Bosco), is slowly being consumed by dementia and they are the only ones that can help.Featuring nuanced performances from an extraordinary cast, THE SAVAGES marks the return of writer and director Tamara Jenkins who won acclaim for the humor and humanity of her previous film, THE SLUMS OF BEVERLY HILLS.
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"The inter play between Linney and Hoffman is fantastic"
Tamara Jenkins triumphantly returns as writer and director of this humane story of the human condition, Laura Linney is superb as the Wendy the younger of the Savages, and Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic as her brother Jon, they are reunited after years when they receive a phone call about their abusive father, who is played terrifically by Philip Bosco. His health is deteriorating, he has Dementia,
The inter play between Linney and Hoffman is fantastic, he's very cynical, while she is doing what she thinks is right for her father, but by extension is more for herself, after seeing these two together it's easy to see them as brother and sister.
This film is very sensitive to its subject matter, and ends on a high with Wendy producing her play and Jon going off to Poland or a conference, it also gives the powerful message that life moves on.
Tamara Jenkins, has done a wonderful job here, with this smart drama about the human condition, well written and directed.
