The Conical Glass: The Best Film of 2007: "The Savages"

Sunday, December 30, 2007

The Best Film of 2007: "The Savages"

Guest blogged by Joe Mallon

How fitting that the last movie I saw in 2007 was the best movie I saw in 2007: "The Savages," written & directed by Tamara Jenkins. Philip Seymour Hoffman & Laura Linney play Jon & Wendy Savage, siblings who share a love for theater and ambivalence toward their father Lenny (Philip Bosco), who's losing his mind to dementia. When he can no longer care for himself, Jon & Wendy must work together to put him in a nursing home. The experience causes both to re-evaluate their own lives and how Dad's abusive parenting warped them.

That doesn't sound like a laugh riot, and it's not, but the movie is consistently funny, finding humor in bleak places. More importantly, it's moving and scary, confronting head-on the effects of age-caused incapacity on the "elder," as the movie's ads for a high-end "care center" puts it, and his family. The children try to keep their father connected to the real world -- going so far as to attend a support group to learn just that -- and are just as disappointed as he is when that proves difficult.

There are several scenes of life at Valley View, none of which are scary in their own right, but all of which add up to a chilling picture of reduced independence and decreased capacity. Even as the nursing home staff tries its best to keep Lenny healthy and engaged, it's clear that there's only one way rooms become available at Valley View.

The movie concentrates on the effect of her father's illness on Wendy, a struggling playwright in Manahttan. She's a scared, sad, manic depressive who's been trying to escape her father's shadow for decades. (Her unfinished opus is a "subversive semi-autobiographical play" called "Wake Me When It's Over.") Watching Wendy fight her way through the pain and fog of losing the father, reliving his abondonment, is heartbreaking, and Linney is perfect. Her rapport with Hoffman feels real. They fight, they meddle, they console, and, finally, they support each other.

The movie never strikes a wrong note, never veers into sentimentality or offers an obvious solution to an inescapable problem. The dialogue sounds like people actually talking, instead of cleverness wrapped in irony. "The Savages" is a rich portrait of the struggle of one family to free itself from the past, and the pain that separation causes.

Though it might be hard going, especially for people with older parents (or those older parents themselves), "The Savages" does one of the best things movies can do -- share an experience in all its complexity and beauty. I saw more than 50 movies this year, and this was the best.

Tune in tomorrow for Sue's pick.

posted by 125records @ 12:49 PM

2 Comments:

At 5:31 PM, Cult of James said…

Joe, THE SAVAGES is alright, but did you see Jessica Simpson's BLONDE AMBITION? Now that is powerhouse filmmaking.
At 12:36 AM, Joe said…

Unlike you, James, I am not a powerful film critic, able to see new films months before they are released directly to DVD. I can only go to my local theater and take what I am given.