The Savages: Power Packed Performances

By Devang Ghia • Jul 8th, 2008 • Filed under: Film Review, Highlights, Movies, featured

Cynics may find this film a bit depressing, but not all films are meant to be a Tom and Jerry, writes Devang Ghia about Tamara Jenkins’ 2007 film The Savages

The Savages (2007)

What a movie this is! Or is it? It hardly seems like one. A fly-n-the-wall camera could be following around the actors as they deal with their problems and learn to cope with what life has in store for them. That is the power of the performers. Never do they let you feel that they are following a script. They react exactly as you and I would in their places. Their joys are your joys, their agony is your agony, their sorrow is your sorrow.

The movie has been both, written and directed by Tamara Jenkins. Which I believe is the reason why it retains its emotional core. It would have been impossible for a director to translate what the writer feels into celluloid if the two roles were separated. The Dysfunctional American Family has of late become a rich source of material for some great scripts. The Savages joins this illustrious list and ought to be placed right up there with the likes of American Beauty.

Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman are siblings who have enough on their plates already. She is hopeful of winning a grant for the plays she has written while carrying on rather reluctantly with her married lover. Slightly better off is Hoffman, a professor of theater whose girlfriend is to be deported because he does not want to marry her. They are brought together when they receive a call that their dad (Philip Bosco) has been behaving rather abnormally.

The girlfriend with whom their dad lived-in has expired and her family wants their father to move out. The term ‘live-in’ may conjure up images of unbridled bohemia, but that’s not the case. The girl-friend and the father are both geriatric and what’s more, the father is foul-mouthed, short-tempered person, moving towards dementia. Boscos’s understated performance is one of the highlights of the film. Flying of the handle at times and appearing deeply hurt when his kids decide to put him in a home for “assisted living”, he reflects the sentiments of the viewer.

As for Linney and Hoffman, watch the film to believe their performances. Their guilt as they choose a home for their father, bickering over differences in opinions, but ultimately sharing a sense of attachment with each other. Simply awesome!

Cynics may find this film a bit depressing, but not all films are meant to be a Tom and Jerry. If you are looking for a good time at the movies, and particularly if that’s all what you look for in a movie, avoid at all costs. Everyone else, you don’t want to miss this one.

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