“The Savages” (Fox Searchlight)
They Wrote the Book On Acting
Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are so perfect in their roles in the new film “The Savages” that you would bet they wrote the book on acting. As a brother and sister taking care of their dementia stricken father these two bring the characters to life in a way that doesn’t appear to be acting at all. They just are these two people – and that is the mark of great acting skills.
Lenny Savage (Phillip Bosco) is living in Arizona but not doing too great. He is having moments of delusion and agitation. When his common law wife dies it is up to his kids to care for him. Wendy (Linney) contacts her brother Jon (Hoffman) and tells them of their responsibility. Then the two of them travel to Arizona to pick up their father and bring him back to New York State.
Their burden is intensified by the fact that neither of them cares very much for their father. He was not a good parent and they have not been close for years. Still they hunker down and take up the load of caring for him.
Getting to look inside the private lives of these two “children” is the core of the film. They each evolve over time and end up a little further down the road to maturity by the end of the movie. The audience is pulling for them and seeing them progress provides a measure of entertainment and enjoyment.
Still it must be noted the movie overall is a downer. Watching a story about an elderly person dying is not a fun film to see. This seems to be a pattern in Hollywood lately as “The Bucket List” is also about death and dying.
The film is rated R for profanity and adult situations.
Hoffman is amazing as Jon. Just watching him going through the motions of moving some of his papers and books in order to give Wendy a place to bed down is like seeing a neighbor or acquaintance down the street do the same thing. It tells so much about his character and so much about his talent.
Linney is always one quirk away from idiocy but she never crosses that line. She makes Wendy an eager beaver in some ways and a total non-achiever in others. Her most telling scene is in her exercising. She can never quite get the beat right though she focuses all her energy on the act of trying.
If you go see “The Savages” go for the acting and the moments of humor and don’t let yourself get too weighed down by the other solemn subject matter.
I scored “The Savages” a senile 6 out of 10.
