The Savages

The Savages stands out among the ‘dysfunctional family’ dramas of recent years. Marketed as a comedy, it finds most of its humour in the often gently painful truths of two siblings coming together to care for their estranged father Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco). In her first feature film since Slums Of Beverly Hills in 1998 which was a lighter look at family dramas, Tamara Jenkins takes a different approach to the theme.

Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) and Jon Savage (Phillip Seymour-Hoffman) hint at a hidden history of childhood abuse at the hands of their father which fuels their mixed reactions to the present challenge of his dementia. With their father regressing to a child-like state they have no hope of him remembering his past sins, much less offering them closure on old wounds. They have to seek it in themselves and with each other, finding a way to overcome a history of crippled relationships and frustrated careers.

The relationship between the siblings is the fascination of the film. Wendy is highly strung, clinging to an untenable relationship; Jon is suppressed, letting go of a woman he should be hanging onto. Wendy is driven by guilt about putting Lenny in a nursing home, while Jon’s sense of duty is far less keenly felt. She is a struggling playwright. He is struggling to finish his academic treatise on Bertolt Brecht.

The actors’ temperaments are well-matched to their dynamic, as Jon helps Wendy gain distance from her cluttered life, and she urges him to find connections in his. There’s a lot of humour in Hoffman’s wonderfully wry perspective on their dilemma which is counterpointed by Linney’s justifiably overwrought response. While Philip Bosco manages to be an entertainingly irascible performer, his character’s dementia is more a slightly caricatured catalyst for the story, rather than a central theme. The characters’ journey is highlighted by understated direction from Jenkins, with her main visual flourish in the film’s ironic progression from the sun-soaked retirement city in which the father languishes, through increasingly wet and icy scenes, to end in the externally bleak nursing home where he finds peace.

It’s apt that Jon lectures on Brecht’s theatre of social unrest. The film’s subtly symbolic dialogue has a hint of Brecht and the intelligent screenplay won several nominations (including for the Oscars) and festival awards. There’s also a final nod to Brecht in the closing ‘play within a play’ that underscores the layered representations of this family story and the challenges of dutifulness. Yet there is no Brechtian alienation here. Despite the not-always-likeable characters, there is still warmth and humour in this interesting take on the sins of the father.

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