Film Reviews

The Savages

• Rating:
• Director: Tamara Jenkins
• Starring: Gbenga Akinnagbe
• Details: USA / 113mins (15A)

What to do with our frail parents - put them in care or care for them ourselves - is a question that will face most of us in our lifetime, and Wendy (Linney) and Jon (Hoffman) Savage are forced to make that decision right now; their father Lenny (Bosco), who they haven't seen in years, is suffering from dementia and needs help. Wendy and Jon, however, are trying to keep their own lives from falling apart: Professor Jon is writing a book on Bertold Brecht while trying to keep a relationship with his Polish girlfriend (Cara Seymour) going; when Wendy isn't sleeping with her middle-aged, married boyfriend and staving off depression with happy pills, she's waiting on word of a writing grant while holding down a temp job. Both struggle with their feelings for their father, the guilt over sticking him in a home and with the intrusions they thrust on each other's lives. Writer director Jenkins strives to keep her story anchored in realism, avoiding schmaltz, melodrama and spoon-feeding like the plague (this ain't no 'Dad') - rather than a plot, it's a series of events centred on an incapacitated parent and the effect it has on his children, an effect they try to keep hidden from each other and, to the detriment of the film, us. There is no real emotional connection between sister and brother, between children and parent in a cinematic sense; the characters keep each other at arm's length and the audience are kept at arm's length from the characters. No one really grows and learns a few life lessons during the course of the film. Jenkins must be applauded for taking this route, but an injection of heart wouldn't have gone astray either. On the plus side are the odd moments of humour that crop up in the most unusual places, and the performances - Linney proves yet again what an underrated actress she really is, while Hoffman, even though he isn't called upon to show what we know he can really do, is confidently reserved - are solid. The Savages on the whole is a detached affair and, as a result, can be a little dull.

Review by Gavin Burke