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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 24 January 2008

Tamara Jenkins and Philip Seymour Hoffman as siblings united by trauma

Family crisis as the balance of power shifts

THE SAVAGES
Directed by TAMARA JENKINS
Certificate 15

THE opening sequences — showing a bunch of enthusiastic 60-somethings exercising en masse in the grounds of a nursing home — usher in a blistering story of a family facing up to the torment of putting their father into his final resting place.
On the outside, bright and breezy. Inside, loneliness and the despair of facing the inevitable.
Pa Savage (Philip Bosco) is a cranky oldtimer sinking into dementia. He conceals his terror at growing helplessly senile beneath a veneer of vitriolic criticism.
This is levelled at his son Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and daughter Wendy (Laura Linney) when they are forced to confine him to the depressing Valley View Home, where the only view is a wintry snowstorm splattering the windows through the fog.
Jon is a teacher at the local university, while Wendy is trying to get her first novel published. In their own ways, each tries to come to terms with their angst and guilt at leaving Dad to the mercy of the establishment.
Pa is given a room, which he shares with a fellow inmate behind a curtain on the opposite side, and spends his days staring at the ceiling or watching old films on TV.
His future is as bleak as the scenery, but his “kids” join forces to give him the best they can.
Director Tamara Jenkins reveals a dysfunctional family in their true light as they squabble like alley cats, yet touches an ultra-sensitive chord even as we recoil from their torment.
The performances are impeccable, and the subtle screenplay (by Tamara Jenkins herself, with a well deserved Oscar nomination this week) is one to be savoured by film students everywhere.
Because here is a truly extraordinary film about love and mortality that is almost too painful to watch.

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