In her first film since The Slums of Beverly Hills, writer/director Tamara Jenkins has once again delved into the world of family, parents, and how both shape our lives.  On the back of a strong performance by Laura Linney and a typically-on target one from Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Savages succeeds in exposing the full canvas without forcing you to concentrate on the individual brushstrokes.  Like any fine work of art, those details are there if you want to become absorbed in them, but if not you can appreciate the creation as a piece by itself.

Linney and Hoffman are brother and sister, the only two children in a family they would rather forget about but carry with them in everything they do.  Their mother walked out years earlier, and by choice they have been out of contact with their abusive father for over a decade.  Inevitably the phone call arrives: their father’s live-in girlfriend has died, and he (Philip Bosco) no longer has a place to live.  He is also confused and losing touch with reality.  Forced into action, the children fly to Arizona, where their father is diagnosed with dementia.  With no other viable option, they arrange to move him to a nursing home in Buffalo (where Hoffman teaches at a local college and works on obscure books).  Linney is a struggling playwright, so she stays with Hoffman for a while to be near Dad.

Every action and every emotion of the children is influenced by their experiences as youngsters.  Linney has tremendous guilt about her father, lies about her career, takes painkillers, and is sleeping with a married man.  Hoffman is watching a three-year romance end because he is afraid to commit.  Both fear the idea of creating their own family, as it might result in the same nightmare they experiences themselves.

The brilliance of Jenkins’ touch is she does not bend the characters to fit the situation.  They are realistic, and their motivations remain obscured but decipherable.  Even Bosco’s father character is three-dimensional, and true: he is confused, frustrated, and both angry and afraid of the occasional realization that his life is over.  Yet his actions and reactions to the activity around him bring new insight into both how he became who he is, and how his children came to cut themselves off from his world.  The dark humor of the script reasserts itself whenever things get too heavy, and she avoids any heavy-handed Hollywood epiphany.  Just as earlier experiences have shaped them, these new struggles will help shape the characters for the future.  This is a very strong film, but not overly powerful.  I recommend it highly.