Stars:
***
Rating: R for profanity and sexual
situations
Run
Time: 1 hour, 53 minutes
Parenting
your parents is a tough row to hoe as supported by Tamara Jenkins’ bittersweet
family dramedy.
Thanks
to the whip-smart work of top thesps Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman
the pain of dealing with an aging father comes full circle.
Jon
(Hoffman) and Wendy (Linney) Savage spend their self-absorbed days seeking
approval from their writing, their teaching and their dysfunctional personal
relationships.
When
their retired, Arizona-based dad (Philip Bosco) starts writing on the walls in
excrement it appears the jig is up. Brother and sister are forced to abandon
their East Coast foxholes and join forces to act on their father’s behalf.
Easier
said than done as teaching the theater of social unrest isn’t adequate
emotional preparation for facing your past and dealing with an unsettling present.
Jon
and Wendy admit Dad to the hospital and sag under the weight of his vascular
dementia tremors, geriatric confusion and Sun City malaise. Next stop the
Valley View Rehab Center, with a disheartening “view” of the concrete parking
lot.
“Savages”
begs the question of responsibility for your elders, and ultimately for yourself.
The trials of the sandwich generation are laced with dark humor; seat-squirmingly
uncomfortable rather than laugh out loud funny.
As the sibs
ride out the holidays in helplessly harrowing fashion they ultimately confront what
all the MFAs and PhDs in the world can’t prepare them for: life’s inevitable
decline.
Naturally
both Linney and Hoffman are superb, glowing with innate talent while digging
deep into the recesses of childhood scars and adult neuroses. Linney is a
standout as the brand of female whose nurturing is limited to pets and the
pills required to get through the day. Scripting intermittently flags but picks
up and brushes itself off when need be.
Affecting
and dangerously close to home.