If you want a break from the rather heavy films that made it to the Oscars this year, The Savages--an irreverent look at family, love, and mortality--would be a nice choice.
Starring Academy Award honorees Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Savages tells the story of the two Savage siblings who are forced to reunite to take care of their estranged elderly father. Having only wriggled their way out from beneath their father’s domineering thumb, the last thing the Savages ever wanted to do was to look back at their family history and relive those not-so-happy days.
Wendy Savage (Linney) is a struggling East Village playwright who spends her days applying for grants, stealing office supplies, and dating her married neighbor. Jon Savage (Hoffman) is a neurotic college professor who writes books on obscure subjects. Their already complicated lives seem to turn in for the worst after they are informed that their estranged father (Philip Bosco) is slowly being consumed by dementia, and they are the only ones that can help.
Soon they are forced to live together under one roof for the first time since childhood, where they rediscover the eccentricities that drove each other crazy. Faced with this major change in their lives, plus the trouble of handling their father’s final days, they are confronted with what adulthood, family, and each other are really about.
Writer and director Tamara Jenkins based the film on her own experience with handling her father’s dementia, enabling her to tackle the subject from her own raw, real, and comically tinged perspective. With The Savages, she was able to flesh out the anxiety of growing up (and being forced to grow up) as younger adults are forced to switch places with their parents who have reached the point of helplessness.
You can catch The Savages at the Ayala Malls Cinemas starting April 23.
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