The Savages
Written & Directed by Tamara Jenkins
Whether presented as entertainment, drama or entertaining drama, death has maintained a longstanding relationship with cinema. But when it dictates the story, rather than complements it, a severe case of tonal imbalance tends to overlap the rest of the picture. In The Savages, Tamara Jenkins’ sophomore feature after 1998’s Slums of Beverly Hills, the morbidity conveyed by a pair of grown siblings coping with their father’s dying days practically qualifies as grief porn—but, since the movie only teeters on the brink of a pity party without relishing the mood, the grief doesn’t venture beyond the point of softcore sadness.
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney (a clever pairing of versatile actors) play Jon and Wendy Savage, whose lives churn away in monotonous routines until sudden familial bonds careen into the frame. Their dementia-riddled father (Philip Bosco) loses the shelter of home care when his elderly girlfriend passes on, leaving his squabbling offspring to handle their dad’s last days. Neither of them arrives at his Arizona dwelling equipped for the task: Both unmarried New Yorkers are distinctly unsatisfied with themselves. The Savages aren’t dysfunctional as individual units, but they have a hard time churning together.
Jon, a disgruntled literary professor based in Buffalo, N.Y., manages to hide his sorrow in disheveled restraint (Hoffman’s primary strength). Wendy wears a fake smile and works at a lame temp job in the city while maintaining playwright aspirations. They’re equally incapable of romantic satisfaction, as Jon’s Polish girlfriend suffers visa problems and Wendy wearily bangs her married neighbor. Stuck in cycles of dissatisfaction, their father’s illness brings a fresh rhythm of discontent to the table.
The Savages has a sharp script (also by Jenkins) that avoids heavy stylization, yet the pace often feels muted instead of desperate. These neatly designed characters are symptomatic of a genre centered on coping with the closeness of death—where the person coping, not the dying person, becomes the focus of a personal journey. In this makeshift category, The Savages joins a decidedly mixed crowd populated by fairly recent releases like The Barbarian Invasions, Aurora Borealis and Big Fish. It’s a timeless myth, but representations of the pre-mourning experience carry such universality that they sometimes come across as exploitative. The Savages never falls into that trap, although Jenkins’ observations of her characters as they witness the gradual formation of death sometimes overwhelm the storytelling.
Occasionally, these narratives of unhappiness transcend their own standards, as Sarah Polley’s Away from Her (which centers on an Alzheimer’s patient incapable of remembering her husband) did earlier this year. The Savages lacks the contemplative weight and remarkable poignancy of Polley’s work, but Jenkins has a few enticing cinematic tricks that rescue the movie from overindulging in sorrow. It’s got a killer opening, featuring gorgeous imagery of suburban tranquility in Sun City, Ariz., and the implication of bleaker forces operating beneath the surface (akin to the credit sequence on Showtime’s pot-peddling comedy “Weeds”).
Several effective motifs unravel throughout the story. A somber piano score sustains moments that gradually rise in tension and dissolve into suggestion (such as Jon’s estranged relationship, which we barely see). The continual despair as Pop Savage deteriorates would grow tiresome if weren’t for Hoffman and Linney, whose roles allow them to wear their best neurotic tics. They might be functioning in autopilot, but that’s proof of their naturalistic qualities as actors: They’re really good at looking unhappy.
Just when the gloom becomes too much, Jenkins imbues the script with reflexivity. Jon prepares a lecture on dark comedy in Brecht, and Linney adds “subversive” to the description of her talents on a grant application. Details like these comment on the irony of self-pity (they’re really asking for it). The plot never rises above its basic structure, oscillating between observations of the siblings’ obsessions and explorations of their dismal situation, but to criticize the imbalance of humor and misfortune in The Savages would miss the point, because that very dissonance is its cloudy raison d’etre.
Written & Directed by Tamara Jenkins
Whether presented as entertainment, drama or entertaining drama, death has maintained a longstanding relationship with cinema. But when it dictates the story, rather than complements it, a severe case of tonal imbalance tends to overlap the rest of the picture. In The Savages, Tamara Jenkins’ sophomore feature after 1998’s Slums of Beverly Hills, the morbidity conveyed by a pair of grown siblings coping with their father’s dying days practically qualifies as grief porn—but, since the movie only teeters on the brink of a pity party without relishing the mood, the grief doesn’t venture beyond the point of softcore sadness.
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney (a clever pairing of versatile actors) play Jon and Wendy Savage, whose lives churn away in monotonous routines until sudden familial bonds careen into the frame. Their dementia-riddled father (Philip Bosco) loses the shelter of home care when his elderly girlfriend passes on, leaving his squabbling offspring to handle their dad’s last days. Neither of them arrives at his Arizona dwelling equipped for the task: Both unmarried New Yorkers are distinctly unsatisfied with themselves. The Savages aren’t dysfunctional as individual units, but they have a hard time churning together.
Jon, a disgruntled literary professor based in Buffalo, N.Y., manages to hide his sorrow in disheveled restraint (Hoffman’s primary strength). Wendy wears a fake smile and works at a lame temp job in the city while maintaining playwright aspirations. They’re equally incapable of romantic satisfaction, as Jon’s Polish girlfriend suffers visa problems and Wendy wearily bangs her married neighbor. Stuck in cycles of dissatisfaction, their father’s illness brings a fresh rhythm of discontent to the table.
The Savages has a sharp script (also by Jenkins) that avoids heavy stylization, yet the pace often feels muted instead of desperate. These neatly designed characters are symptomatic of a genre centered on coping with the closeness of death—where the person coping, not the dying person, becomes the focus of a personal journey. In this makeshift category, The Savages joins a decidedly mixed crowd populated by fairly recent releases like The Barbarian Invasions, Aurora Borealis and Big Fish. It’s a timeless myth, but representations of the pre-mourning experience carry such universality that they sometimes come across as exploitative. The Savages never falls into that trap, although Jenkins’ observations of her characters as they witness the gradual formation of death sometimes overwhelm the storytelling.
Occasionally, these narratives of unhappiness transcend their own standards, as Sarah Polley’s Away from Her (which centers on an Alzheimer’s patient incapable of remembering her husband) did earlier this year. The Savages lacks the contemplative weight and remarkable poignancy of Polley’s work, but Jenkins has a few enticing cinematic tricks that rescue the movie from overindulging in sorrow. It’s got a killer opening, featuring gorgeous imagery of suburban tranquility in Sun City, Ariz., and the implication of bleaker forces operating beneath the surface (akin to the credit sequence on Showtime’s pot-peddling comedy “Weeds”).
Several effective motifs unravel throughout the story. A somber piano score sustains moments that gradually rise in tension and dissolve into suggestion (such as Jon’s estranged relationship, which we barely see). The continual despair as Pop Savage deteriorates would grow tiresome if weren’t for Hoffman and Linney, whose roles allow them to wear their best neurotic tics. They might be functioning in autopilot, but that’s proof of their naturalistic qualities as actors: They’re really good at looking unhappy.
Just when the gloom becomes too much, Jenkins imbues the script with reflexivity. Jon prepares a lecture on dark comedy in Brecht, and Linney adds “subversive” to the description of her talents on a grant application. Details like these comment on the irony of self-pity (they’re really asking for it). The plot never rises above its basic structure, oscillating between observations of the siblings’ obsessions and explorations of their dismal situation, but to criticize the imbalance of humor and misfortune in The Savages would miss the point, because that very dissonance is its cloudy raison d’etre.
