Virginia Film Festival: The Savages (2007)
I was a little weary of The Savages at first. It opens with a gaggle of old ladies dancing in slow-mo, and I thought we may be in a for a long slog through hip indie ticks posturing as dialed down real world pain tedium. In the following scene, we see a man writing a message of protest in his own shit. Writer-director Tamara Jenkins deals in this kind of tonal discombobulation throughout the entire film. One gag seems lifted from the Little Miss Sunshine school of faux uplift, the next has the delirious casual truth cynicism of The Simpsons at it’s most wicked, or the sharp, unforgiving human insight of an Alexander Payne film (who did executive produce).
Jenkins’ film concerns two siblings, Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and Wendy (Laura Linney) who come together after an unspecified (based on their reactions to one another it’s been a while) amount of time to deal with the fecal writer in question, who happens to be their father, Lenny (Philip Bosco, terrific). We learn that Lenny is demented, and that something has to be done with him after his living situation suddenly collapses.
The siblings are both frustrated writers, both romantically constipated, and are both nursing wounds from their dad that Jenkins keeps tantalizingly vague. The father has returned but he really hasn’t, and Jenkins never compromises on this particularity; the father is gone, but still needs to be cared for. Jon is blunt, distant, matter of fact. Wendy is the same, but not as comfortable admitting it, she wants to be a good person, but she wants to be a good person who’s rid of this man.
Philip Seymour Hoffman is possibly the most exciting American actor working in movies. There’s no remove, no visible technique, and there’s a force to Hoffman that contradicts his doughy exterior. He’s pure, coiled, unchecked masculine need. A man playing men often cursed with just enough intelligence to ensure that he continually knows how little he measures up. Here’s the surprise though, Hoffman’s characters, in spite of all that, are still cool. Like Paul Giamatti’s Harvey Pekar, Hoffman’s characters speak for something that many of us feel but don’t have a voice to express, and it’s this expression, this representation of tattered need, that lends Hoffman’s characters their dignity.
Linney, playing a character every bit as fucked up as Hoffman, is also every bit his match here, the female embodiment of everything I just wrote about Hoffman. Casting two powerhouse actors as siblings can sometimes be dicey, we may catch them trying to one up one another, but Jon and Wendy compliment one another as siblings in a way that feels real, the natural one upsmanship goes with the territory. Old grudges and disappointments don’t resurface here in long winded, show-offy monologues, they peak out from the past like sharks, and quickly duck back into the water again. Jenkins has made a film in which all of the really big stuff happens off screen: abuse, disappointment, resentment. This film is about the mop up in between the big blow outs.
The Savages is Tamara Jenkins’ second film, her first being Slums of Beverly Hills, and they both share a compulsion to chase really devastating scenes with goofy, seventh grade girl non sequiturs. Slums had a real humdinger where Carl Reiner revels in his brother Alan Arkin’s poverty, right in front of Arkin’s little girls. It’s a marvelous, mean piece of truth telling, and Jenkins dissipates the tension with a disappointingly over the top payoff. Jenkins is on surer footing with The Savages, but she does lose herself a bit in the end.
Jenkins’ problem is noble: she likes her characters too much, she doesn’t want to leave them hanging. In all likelihood, that would be the best thing for her art. We’re supposed to feel hope for these characters, and I don’t mind that, but things don’t wrap up, they never do, and I don’t believe the emotional leap that Hoffman makes in the end. Maybe in a few years but not now. Sometimes we want our truth straight, without any chasers, without the ending that tells us everything is ok. It’s not a deal breaker though, because otherwise Jenkins has made a raw, quick film of startling, implosive impact.
★★★½
November 7th, 2007 at 11:20 am
This was a great flick, and I liked the upbeat ending. It felt earned and it doesn’t reach too far. Phillip Seymour Hoffman plumbs deep in this one, and the role isn’t showy. If you feel like being blown away, see this flick and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead back-to-back.
November 7th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
This one is on my list for this weekend, but I don’t know. I’m having a hard time picking. Knowing it’s coming soon to a theater makes me want to wait…but if it’s good, there’s no time like the present.
November 8th, 2007 at 6:04 am
It’s very, very good. Revelatory, really, even if you don’t like the ending. It’s also not one of those movies you feel like you have to like; it’s funny and entertaining. It’s not an art movie.
November 8th, 2007 at 6:13 am
I would like to emphasize that the ending isn’t a major problem. It’s just that almost all of these movies end with a similar “I’m going to check in on the person I’ve been afraid to check on the entire running time of the movie and that means I’ve learned what I’m supposed to and everything is hunky dory” ending. This film is better, and braver than that ending. The scene immediatly before it, involving the rehearsal of a play, is all you need to know about these people.
November 12th, 2007 at 10:35 am
Loved this movie and I love your description of Hoffman “He’s pure, coiled, unchecked masculine need.” Well put.
I was also troubled some by the pat ending, I like healing and I like an arc, but this one went a teeny bit too far.
What really threw me though was the business with the dog. I know I’m not always the sharpest knife in the drawer and in my defense I was at the tail end of the largest number of movies I’ve ever seen in the shortest period of time, but I don’t know what to take from the final shot.
To me, it ran completely counter to the notion of letting go that I thought was so important to the movie as a whole.
I’m offering valuable cash prizes to anyone who can help me out here because otherwise I loved this movie.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:32 am
I thought the final shot may have been a testament to Linney’s refusal to let go, proof that she can’t part with her inherent self-absorption, that she hasn’t healed. But I may be giving the movie too much credit, I think Jenkins felt she needed to give the audience something, and blew us a jokey kiss at the end that we really don’t need.
It’s a wonderful movie otherwise though, and one of the very best of the year (IMHO.)
November 12th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
I definitely saw it as evidence that Linney hadn’t healed, but I wasn’t convinced that was Jenkins intention. If it is…I say bravo. It helps rough up the edges of an ending that was otherwise a teeny bit too easy.
I like the idea that Linney and Hoffman have both grown from their experience and are perhaps a little closer together and more ‘with it’, but having things suddenly be perfect would be too much.
Either way, agreed that it’s one of my favorites in a very good year.