The Savages
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Actor: Guy Boyd, Maddie Corman, Michael Higgins, Peter Frechette, Philip BoscoBrand: TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENT
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 113 minutes
Published: 2008-04-01
DVD Release Date: 2008-04-22
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
DVD Reviews of The Savages
DVD Review: Aims for insight, settles for middlebrow
Summary: 3 Stars
A slovenly Brecht scholar and his sorta-playwright sister watch their estranged father die in Tamara Jenkins' "The Savages," which never quite decides if it'd like to be a satire, Bergman-style claustrodrama or one of those high-end, visually static art pictures that might as well be performed on a stage. And for good reason - Jenkins, like a lot of her gifted contemporaries, is not aspiring to be Lars Von Trier; rather, she's merely a bright, literate filmmaker cobbling together experiences, jokes and observations into something resembling a loose plot, filmed in whatever style suits her mood that day. As a coherent vision, it isn't; it's really a blog of, oh, Wonkette quality, as emotions, dialogue and character arcs change briskly, presumably according to the quality of one's donut that morning, or the intensity of conversation the night before. The ending of "The Savages" is surprisingly foolish. Sugary even. Not merely unearned, it seems like A Life Lesson Learned. It's soft-core Tama Janowitz turned "One True Thing." C'mon now. You feel like taking a few names in vain.
Such is often the lot of those trying to give voice and grant victory to Generation X All Grown Up as it struggles to get a scoop of the pie hoarded by Baby Boomers, who are forever to trying to recapture their youth (that is, use wistfulness as a means of control and generational subjugation) through the social (sexual) exploitation of their junior partner. In Jon and Wendy Savage, the slob/snob combo played by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney, we see emotional immaturity froth into sloppy attempts at intimacy, a willingness to take life on the chin, marijuana as a coping mechanism, an inability to finish, a helping of shame or that character trait a bit farther down the subway line - sloth. It'd be a fresh woman's perspective if Nicole Holofcener, the Sprecher sisters, Lisa Cholodenko, and Rebecca Miller hadn't made the same commentaries in the last six years. Or if Jenkins hadn't so expertly charted this journey in "The Slums of Beverly Hills" eight years ago. Or if Noah Baumbach, Nicole Kidman, and the DDG Jennifer Jason Leigh hadn't thrown "Margot at the Wedding" into the arena. "The Savages" can't bust free of all that; its best foot, so to speak, are Hoffman and Linney, who are decent but unspectacular.
It's Linney's Wendy who gets top billing; Jon's too skilled at emotional distance to be the lead of any kind of funny movie Jenkins would make. Wendy's a temp of some kind, working on a play about her childhood, the title and contents of which don't seem very original. At any rate, she's the prototypical Gen X girl, sleeping with a married, balding Boomer, mostly, it seems, out of kindness and some affinity for the guy's dog. After a tryst with said MBB, she checks her answering machine: Come get your dad, a voice says. He's writing in his own feces.
For Lenny (Philip Bosco), this seems like an act of defiance and dementia, but when his live-in girlfriend dies at the nail salon shortly after this episode, it really doesn't matter. The lady's kids don't want him. Jon and Wendy's turn.
The short opening act, in which siblings are dragged back into Lenny's life and forced to find him a new home, is nearly perfect; over the opening credits, Jenkins presents a goofy, Tim Burton sideshow of Sun City, Arizona - its landscaping done a spare, Feng Shui style, an apt amphitheater for what can only be considered an elderly pom-pom squad - only to quickly reveal a harsher core, of, frankly, fat, unhappy people (a rude male nurse, the aforementioned pushy kids). Shades of "Blue Velvet?" I considered it. More like Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" video. Jon and Wendy look like pinned specimens in this environment: Too much light, too much heat, not enough crawl-in spots to hide, waste time and nurse wounds in.
Predictably, Jon leaves Sun City early - this is not a man who chooses to trouble himself much with people, even a kind Polish lover (Cara Seymour) whose visa is about to expire. And Wendy has to bring Lenny back to Buffalo on a plane by herself. The first misstep in "The Savages" occurs on that ride - an embarrassing trip to the bathroom with little setup or payoff - and Jenkins proceeds to recommit the crimes, over and over: A freak neck injury during a tennis match at the local gym, a confession regarding Wendy's apparent Guggenheim grant, a movie night at Lenny's nursing home, where Lenny inexplicably chooses "The Jazz Singer" to show to patients and all-black orderly staff. Jenkins evens finds time to further the "wise immigrant" myth, complete with a counseling session for Wendy and a smooth "pffft!" of pot roach. Then she tries to kiss the wise orderly, and he-
Well, look. "The Savages" is witty enough, and occasionally on point: Jenkins shows herself to be a person who'd make a good Starbucks Buddy. Jon's rant about upscale nursing homes - which prey on the emotions of the patient's family - is a perfect commentary on the dilemma of the Gen Xer: "Am I doing the right thing? Is this nice enough? Would my older, wiser friends approve?" Jon's cynical, pathetic worldview just happens to be on the right side of this issue, and Hoffman, as always, knows where to find an ounce of intellectual rage in his performance. Jenkins negates this speech, mind you, by deeming it cruel (she does so by cutting to a wide shot of a daughter pushing her mother in a wheelchair, clearly in earshot).
But wit and just-so observations are better kept in seven-page short stories that make the literary journal circuit. Quaint, look-at-my-world lists are fine for filler, but they don't drive drama, and Jenkins proves it in the movie's last act, where, sans rimshots, she relies on trembling hands, the "weird sleep" two-shot, shots of a gray sky and free parting gifts to the characters, courtesy of off-screen growth marked by the title card "six months later." In those final scenes, Jon has a line about Wendy's work that so false and empty that Hoffman seems pained to say it.
Which is interesting, because Hoffman saves a lot of the scenes that Linney either overplays or overtly conforms to Jenkins' shabby direction. A number of times, Linney steps out of character and declares her line, as if to bump the story along. By her nature, Linney is a lot like Jennifer Aniston, a brittle, barking actor, all nerve endings, hand gestures, and worrisome looks. Many of her key roles - "You Can Count On Me," "The Squid and the Whale," - are as responsible, guilt-ridden, overburdened caretakers on the verge of subversive behavior. She does not, in short, have the persona of someone who became estranged from their father and brother for years, and she doesn't wear it well.
Description of The Savages
Academy Award winnerÂ(r) Philip Seymour Hoffman* and Academy AwardÂ(r) nominee Laura Linney** deliver unforgettable performances in this hilarious coming-of-middle age story from OscarÂ(r) -nominated writer / director Tamara Jenkins***. Until recently, all John and Wendy Savage (Hoffman, Linney) had in common were a lousy childhood and a few strands of DNA. But after years of drifting apart, they're forced to band together to care for the elderly, cantankerous father who made their formative "challenging." In the process, both of these aimless, perpetually adolescent fortysomethings may just, at long last, have to grow up! *2005: Best Actor, Capote **2007: Best Actress, The Savages; 2004 Best Supporting Actress, Kinsey; 2000: Best Actress, You Can Count on Me. ***2007: Best Original Screenplay, The Savages.Bestsellers in DVD
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