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Last Updated: April 2, 2008 - 1:25 PM
The Savages is a bildungsroman at middle-age.
Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney sing some out-of-season Christmas carols. |
Why do film critics’ opinions often differ so widely from that of the public at large? To answer this riddle, it might help to examine some of the structural similarities that bind critics and also the differences that divide them from the rest of the populace. First, critics are writers. Thus, they tend to read more and, in general, have more education in that slushy wasteland otherwise known as the liberal arts. Second, though the act of criticism is itself a creative act, critics tend to be frustrated artists of one type or another, most commonly that sad and deceitful breed: the frustrated novelist.
A film that takes as its protagonists a plump, mediocre academic (“That could have been me!”) and a failing playwright (“That is me!”), and simultaneously objectifies and humanizes them, has, by its very nature, an advantage under “critical” examination. Toss in a few jokes that require an understanding of what a Sam Sheppard play is like to massage tender egos (“That liberal-arts education was useful after all!”) and—voila!—a critics’ darling is born. Awash in the illusion of objectivity, drunk on tea and satiated with croissants, how can they, or I, resist?
This darling of a film is The Savages, a very fine picture, solid in every way,
THE SAVAGES
Written and directed by Tamara Jenkins
With Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Philip Bosco, Peter Friedman, David Zayas, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Cara Seymour, Tonye Patano, Guy Boyd and Debra Monk
UA DeVargas
113 min.
R |
which will have much greater appeal to critics—and those like them—than to average viewers.
Written and directed by Tamara Jenkins, who made The Slums of Beverly Hills nearly a decade ago, The Savages is a shrewdly observed tragicomedy about a pair of emotionally stunted, middle-aged siblings who, in dealing with their deteriorating father, are punted out of their denial and forced, bit by bit, to face their existential dread, their longing, their mediocrity, each other.
Jenkins’ writing and direction are superb. Sentimentality is avoided, the humor is subtle and the dialogue is realistic and revelatory without ever being trite. Particularly impressive is the way in which Jenkins laces in a sub-textual motif—often used, but made fresh here—of life as theater.
The Savages’ acting is also very strong. The two siblings, Wendy and Jon Savage, are played, with equal brilliance, by Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Linney’s Wendy is a grant-chasing struggling playwright who pilfers office supplies from her day job, sleeps with her married neighbor and, around her brother, is as stuck in the resentful, unseen-little-sister role as a square is stuck with four sides. Linney’s performance here recalls the ingenious subtlety of control that she displayed in 2000’s You Can Count On Me, in which she also played a sister struggling against the familial alienation that so perplexes the turn of the millennium milieu.
Jon, played by the increasingly prolific Hoffman (besides The Savages, in 2007, he was also great in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead and Charlie Wilson’s War), is a middling academic who specializes in the German playwright and stage director, Bertolt Brecht.
Praising Hoffman is quickly becoming redundant, but is difficult to avoid.
Perhaps the most understated and miraculous acting is that of Philip Bosco, who plays the patriarch Savage, steadfastly cranky but increasingly plagued by dementia. Moreover, Peter Friedman gives an absolutely spot-on turn as Wendy’s self-aware but caring (mostly about gratifying his needs) nooner.
So what’s not to like? Well, for all those liberal-arts-educated, Monday- morning critics: nothing.
© Copyright 2000-2008 by the Santa Fe Reporter
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