The Sav­ages is the story of a frac­tured fam­ily, sep­a­rated not least by geog­ra­phy, that reunites on the occa­sion of an aged parent’s health. Both sib­lings haven’t seen their father in years, so what was prob­a­bly a slow decline seems to them a sud­den plunge into senil­ity. Both have their own prob­lems, and nei­ther is mature enough or equipped to care for their father. Who aban­doned whom?

Curi­ously, the two sib­lings have defined their lives by two very dif­fer­ent aspects of the the­ater: Wendy (Laura Lin­ney) is a frus­trated writer, end­lessly apply­ing for grants instead of actu­ally writ­ing. Rather, she brings a great deal of fic­tion into her every­day life: she man­u­fac­tures drama at every turn, not just with her lover but also with her own body (she has a mean case of hypochon­dria). She is def­i­nitely a nar­cis­sist; her lover is only slightly older than she, but to her he is an “older man.” Also, note her hys­ter­i­cal (in both senses of the word) ratio­nale for her belief that she is above an affair: “I have an M.F.A.”

Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man and Laura Lin­ney in The Savages

Her brother Jon (Philip Sey­mour Hoff­man) is a col­lege pro­fes­sor trapped in a per­pet­u­ally unfin­ished book ana­lyz­ing Brecht. Based on his atti­tude towards Wendy and her lover (a the­ater direc­tor), he evi­dently looks down on those that do the dirty busi­ness of actu­ally cre­at­ing theater.

In a coda, we see that both Jon and Wendy appear to have grown, and become unstuck in the careers and per­sonal lives. Unfor­tu­nately, the end­ing rings false, not in keep­ing with the tone of the events before it. Is writer/director Tamara Jenk­ins’ theme that the death of a par­ent is a final step­ping stone in grow­ing up? If so, how and why? As they did not wit­ness their father’s aging, the audi­ence did not wit­ness Wendy and Jon’s off­screen growth.

Laura Lin­ney and Philip Bosco in The Savages

Two tal­ented Chrises make con­tri­bu­tions: Gbenga Akin­nagbe (Chris in HBO’s The Wire) appears as per­haps the most mature and sen­si­ble char­ac­ter in the film. And Chris Ware was an excel­lent choice to design the poster and DVD menus, for The Sav­ages would fit very nicely along­side his Acme Nov­elty Library comic book series.

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Offi­cial movie site: www.foxsearchlight.com/thesavages

Buy the DVD from Ama­zon and kick back a few pen­nies to The Dork Report.

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