The Savages

Seems like the popular thing in indie film these days is to make biting, ruthless, painfully funny flicks about neurotic, overeducated, hyperliterate, self-absorbed white folks. I think Wes Anderson started the trend, and Noah Baumbach helped define it more sharply and specifically. Now Tamara Jenkins, who makes one movie every four or five years, has thrown her hat into the ring with “The Savages.” And in my opinion, she’s trumped her peers. “The Savages” is dark and cynical enough to satisfy the most sarcastic, but manages to reach past that tiny demographic and appeal to a larger audience with a universal issue and – surprise of surprises – actual warmth and a heart. It may not be a big heart, but it is a heart, nonetheless.

“The Savages” opens with a funny, surreal look at Retirementville, Arizona, complete with cactus and palm tree horticulture and over-the-hill cheerleaders. It’s one of the best, funniest, most arresting openings to a movie I’ve seen recently, and sets up the deeper irony that infuses the whole movie – that no matter how hard we try to put them in lively and warm environments, our elderly are being herded into places to die. The care of our elders is on the minds of many of us, and this carefully observed movie honestly, yet also gently, explores the issue with razor-sharp accuracy and surprising wisdom.

Baumbach must be salivating over this cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney play a brother and sister who must deal with the declining health and mental status of their father(Philip Bosco.) Hoffman is Andy Savage, who has a Ph.D in theater of the absurd and is struggling to write a book on Bertolt Brecht. Linney is Wendy Savage, who is trying to write her own “wrenching, semi-autobiographical” plays. Between the two of them, they have applied for 14 Guggenheims and never received one. When their father’s girlfriend dies, he is kicked out of her house in Sun City, Arizona, and becomes their problem. It’s a big problem, because they live on the East Coast, and don’t exactly have fond memories of their childhood.

Philip Bosco plays about the least lovable old man in the history of cinema. There is not twinkle in this grumpy old man’s eye, and little gratification is offered to his caregivers. Andy and Wendy move him from Arizona to Buffalo, where Andy lives. He is both innocent in his dementia and guilty of his entire history; just because he doesn’t recognize his children doesn’t mean they can forget who he’s been all their lives. Brother and sister approach his decline differently; Andy feels that all nursing homes are essentially the same, playing upon the guilt of children who put their parents in them, while Wendy can’t handle the bare and austere atmosphere of the home they put him in; she keeps bringing him lamps and pillows and other presents the old man has no use for and doesn’t understand. She’s not trying to make him more comfortable, she’s trying to make herself more comfortable with the situation.

While “The Savages” can be, and often is, painful, awkward, and sarcastic, Tamara Jenkins clearly has deep affection for her flawed characters, and this is where she rises above Baumbach. He seems to be punishing the characters in his films (or the people in his past) by putting them onscreen to be laughed at or hated; she sees them more clearly, and shows us both their dysfunction and their desire to loved, accepted, and approved. “The Savages” ends sweetly, without being syrupy, and feels tragic, balanced, funny, and, somehow, warmly painful and lovingly ruthless.

Recommended

• if you like Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson movies
• if you’re dealing with elder care in some way, or see it coming soon.
• if you’re a fan of closely observed, arsenic-laced comedy.

Not Recommended

• if you’re over 65
• if you think overeducated, hyperliterate people are more boring than plain yogurt.
• if your comedy Hall of Fame starts and ends with Will Farrell, Jack Black, and Jim Carrey.