Movies to Study: The Savages

In my original review of 'The Savages,' I stated: "Both of our protagonists are intelligent, yet fail to grasp on to the essentials of traditional happy living. Raised by their irritable father and abandoned by their mother, Wendy is trapped in an affair with a married man, while Jon can't commit to marrying his girlfriend from Poland, even though that means her visa will expire and she has to leave the country. These characters have a good heart, but are simply unaware of how to use it." 'The Savages' is a film about dealing with dementia, but the subtext here is the story of Jon and Wendy's realization that they have more in common than just their father.

The film begins with mellow music and a montage of elderly people dancing, swimming, playing golf, riding bikes. First impressions: Is this a musical disguised as a drama? No, no it is not. It's us being shown what Lenny Savage is missing since he is confined in his home not by his age, but his illness.

The film is a lesson in subtlety. Notice how in the first scene, while Lenny's longtime girlfriend Doris is being dressed by the home care technician, he does not put her ring on her ring finger, but her pinky finger. A small sign of things to come, and one that is easily overlooked because of common assumptions that, A) old people living together are married, and B) we saw the photograph on the fridge moments earlier. And sometimes the subtlety plays into the comedy of later scenes, like when Wendy takes Lenny's suspenders and hat off because they're "not your style," and then when he stands up on the plane... well, you can guess what happens.

Both Laura Linney (Wendy) and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Jon) are outstanding in their roles, proving that they're two of this generation's best actors. Linney, so great in movies ranging from 'Love, Actually' to 'The Truman Show' to 'Kinsey,' delivers another touching performance. Take the scene where she tells Jon that she got the Guggenheim fellowship. She's timid and doesn't say much -- which at first we think is because of the situation: Her father has dementia and her brother doubt her talent and called her life "portable," which she interprets to mean like a portable toilet. But knowing how things turn out, it's clear to see she's hiding something in plain view. And since Jon, her brother, couldn't pick up on it, it's no wonder we can't. Again, subtlety.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Jon straightforward. He is always rational and blunt in dealing with their father. His philosophy is that a nursing home is a nursing home, and the landscaping is all for the family. True, though no one wants to acknowledge this -- especially Wendy. But where Jon succeeds in getting their father into a nursing home, he fails in his personal life. He claims he isn't ready to marry his Polish girlfriend of three years, yet he cries when she cooks him eggs in the morning. Not just the morning before she leaves, but every morning since he realized that their time is finite.

The movie flows like poetry, with one scene almost always leading into the next. I usually dislike cheap gimmicky transitions, such as, "I wonder where he is now," and then the next scene shows where he is now. 'The Savages' uses a little more finesse. When Jon and Wendy first talk on the phone, Jon concludes that they'll really be in trouble when they reach the red zone, but right now they're in orange, maybe yellow. The next shot if of Ravishing Red, the nail polish Lenny's girlfriend Doris is getting just before she dies. Another example is when Jon and Wendy go to a dementia support group. The scene, while having the undercurrent of humor in their eating of refreshments, shows that they do care about Lenny. Support groups are often for the individuals attending, but the group leader mentions ways to help care for your elder, and one of them is talk about old movies. The next scene is Movie Night presented by Lenny Savage. Unfortunately this experience does not go nearly as well as the Savages expected when Lenny screens 'The Jazz Singer,' a film that seems racist by today's standards, but as Jon said, you have to judge it in historical context.

The color red is also an important symbol in this film. We have the red nail polish before Doris dies, the big red pillow that Wendy buys for her father, and just before Lenny's toes curl up (like the Witch in the Wizard of Oz, meaning he's about to die) the scene fades in over the red lava lamp that lights up Lenny's room. There was another great movie that did this with oranges, maybe you've heard of it. It was called 'The Godfather.' Though, obviously, 'The Savages' isn't quite 'Godfather' quality.

Here, Tamara Jenkins makes a wonderful film that I hope will last a long time in the hearts of movie-goers. She knows when the film should be charming, when it should be silly, and when it should be sincere. She achieves something fewer and fewer movies these days seem to accomplish: She makes us care about the characters.