Family Affair

For Jon and Wendy Savage, caring after their demented father isn’t just an unexpected job – it’s also a burden, an imposition, and ultimately, a form of salvation.

The last thing the brother and sister main characters of Tamara Jenkins’ The Savages ever wanted to do was confront their difficult family history because, well…that’s just too real. Mom seems never to have a presence in their lives, but their dad, Lenny (Philip Bosco), he was unsupportive, domineering, and abusive.

Jon and Wendy extricated themselves from that situation years ago, and are now living happily in denial…in their own complicated lives.

Wendy (Laura Linney) is a struggling East Village playwright – a temp, really. She spends her days stealing supplies and time from her jobs as she applies for grants she won’t get, and her nights sleeping with her married neighbor with whom she likes to create false intimacy by telling him her doctor says she might be sick when in fact, she’s just fine.

Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a neurotic college theater professor in his 40s living and working in Buffalo, methodically researches books on obscure subjects. He’s in a relationship with a Polish colleague who must go home because her visa has expired, but he won’t marry her (he’s got issues: he cries when she makes him eggs in the morning).

When a call comes informing them the father they have long feared and avoided is slowly being consumed by dementia, they’re forced to accept the fact that they’re the only ones that can help.

As they put their already arrested lives on hold, Jon and Wendy must live together under one roof for the first time since childhood, and get to know each other again – not without lying and trying to outdo each other, though.

Faced with complete upheaval, and battling over how to handle their father’s final days, the two are confronted with what adulthood, family, and, most surprisingly, each other are really about.

The result is a beautifully played and smartly written 113-minute film that, although a bit too long, will make you appreciate who you are and the ups and downs of your own family.

Or, at the very least, that you aren’t a Savage.

My Rating ***

Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures.