Film review: THE SAVAGES

THE SAVAGES is a touching, moving film, that starts with a great bang and then slows down to a fizzle. The film tells the story of Jon and Wendy Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney), who have to take care of their estranged father when he is diagnosed with dementia and moved into a nursing home in upstate New York. But there are lots of issues simmering under the surface, and the intellectual Savages (he is a Brecht scholar, she is an unproduced playwright after a Guggenheim Fellowship) buckle under the strain.

The first half-hour of the film is funny, fairly fast-paced, moving, and clever. Both leads are on top of their game, and Philip Bosco, who plays their dad, is very good throughout. But once Lenny Savage is moved into his nursing home, the film slows down to a much more lethargic pace, and instead of building into anything new, just wrings the issues set up in the first half-hour, only in a way that's not especially funny, moving, or insightful anymore. The characters become just a tad too self-involved, in a boring kind of way, and none of the promised "issues", when revealed, seem anything that bad, but more like middle-class whining (which Laura Linney's character at one point actually comments on, as if mentioning the elephant in the room exorcises it).

If you're into your existential indie films, you'll like it, if not, still try and rent it - because it starts off great, and almost manages to cross over.

***