I like dark comedies.  I love laughing at things that I probably shouldn’t be laughing at, but do anyway.  So when I first saw previews for the movie The Savages, I felt that it was a movie right up my alley, and I was right.  This movie is more family drama, but it does have some dark comedy thrown in at just the right moments to help lighten the drama. 

Basically this movie is about Wendy (Laura Linney, The Squid and the Whale) and Jon Savage (Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Capote) – a brother and sister who learn that their father needs to be put in a nursing home.  They have not spoken to their father, Lenny

(Philip Bosco, Working Girl), in almost twenty years, and have quite a strained relationship with him.  The siblings come together though and do what needs to be done, and learn many things about each other along the way.  Wendy is an aspiring playwright who makes a living temping, while Jon is an aspiring author who makes his living teaching drama at a college level.  Each has their own problems they are trying to deal with – Wendy is sleeping with a married man, and Jon can’t commit to his Polish girlfriend. 

I really enjoyed watching this family’s story unfold.  There were so many things just under the surface that finally boiled over as the movie went on, and it always helped them make a better decision in their life.  Director Tamara Jenkins (Slums of Beverly Hills) was good at showing just enough, but not telling the audience everything, as to let them figure out the details.  She was also good at showing the humor of the situations the characters found themselves in. 

One of my favorite scenes involved Wendy and her father as they travel to the East Coast.  Wendy decides that her father doesn’t need to wear suspenders as he looks like “Grandpa Walton” and since he’s almost always in his wheelchair, what’s the point, so she takes them off of him.  Soon enough Lenny is on the plane and needs to go to the bathroom, not able to wait for help, Wendy must take him to the bathroom.  As they’re walking down the aisle, Lenny suddenly stops and just stares at Wendy.  Unsure what has happened, Wendy asks her father what is wrong…cut to Lenny’s ankles, which now have his pants around them.  Next cut to a back view of people looking at Lenny wearing an adult diaper. End scene.  Now that’s funny, it probably shouldn’t be as funny as I found it, but it was!  Of course it was a little sad too, but that goes perfectly with the tone of this movie.  

If the director was good, her actors were great.  All three of the main characters were wonderful in making their roles seem very real.  Bosco was definitely the stand out actor as a man with dementia, I was almost shocked in watching a feature and seeing him be himself and not Lenny.  As expected, Linney and Hoffman give wonderful performances.  They acted just as siblings should act, a bit competitive but supportive too, and of course they fought like siblings do too. I haven’t seen much of their work, but every time I do get a chance to watch them in a movie they do not disappoint.  

The Savages would get a B+ for me.  Towards the middle it did get a bit slow, but quickly caught my interest again and kept a strong hold on it until the end of the movie.