There’s a scene two thirds of the way into Tamara Jenkins’ film The Savages that sums up why it’s so good. Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) are siblings entering middle age, neither achieving much success as playwrights or in their personal lives. When their abusive father is diagnosed with dementia, they have to work together to put him into a home.
Jon and Wendy walk in during a presentation for children of the demented at one of the prospective hospitals. As the presentation takes place at the front of the room, Jon and Wendy sneak in the back and, on the way to their seats, help themselves to a few cookies off the snack table.
“Excuse me,” says the presentation leader, in a voice that mixes annoyance, patronization, and phony cheerfulness. “We haven’t served the refreshments yet.” A withering silence follows, with fifty sets of eyes looking straight at Jon and Wendy. Dumbfounded, they tentatively place the cookies back on the table.
The Savages belongs loosely to the dysfunctional family subgenre, taking its place next to the best of Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. It’s a film about disappointed, isolated characters, with a strong air of melancholy, but it’s also one of the funniest movies of the year.
This is Tamara Jenkins’ second film, her first being 1999’s Slums of Beverly Hills. Why the long wait? The same old story: studios scared by a realistic plot, even with Hoffman and Linney, two actors of high regard but modest box office potential, attached. (“They’re superstars to me,” says Jenkins.)
The Savages has the feel of something at least partially autobiographical, but Jenkins hesitates to draw direct parallels to her life. “The story came together as a mosaic made out of all these little fragments of ideas, some of them from my own experiences, some of them from things I observed around me,” she says. “Then, it really started to come together through the characters of Wendy and Jon, these two adult siblings who have such completely different ways of dealing with the world and yet are thrust into this completely primal experience in which they’ve got no choice but to rely on each other.”
The film is anchored by two great performances by the always-reliable Linney and Hoffman (who, incidentally, is having another good year with Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead). Also worth noting is the cinematography by Mott Hupfel, who makes a rich palette out of grays and browns, and, occasionally uses harsh, bright lighting in a way that effectively suggests forced cheer.
“I really love these characters,” Jenkins says. “They’re terribly human and incredibly flawed and completely screwed up and I adore them for it. They’re these two mismatched, damaged people who are both in a kind of arrested development. Even though they’re in middle age, they really aren’t finished people yet, and that makes them very interesting.”
