The Savages [M]

When they’re father’s girlfriend passes away, it falls to Jon and Wendy Savage to fine a new home for him that can cater for his early stages of dementia. As they’ve only kept in scant contact with their father since their troubled childhood, the task of finding a home for him and making his last moments special brings out the brutal home truths about cold reality, imminent death, and their own broken lives. 

I’m just saying this honestly, I have only watched this movie because it was the screening today for Literature and the Screen at uni. Any movie about dementia and having to cope with it in the family just cuts too close to home for me personally, therefore I’m not keen to rush out and see one just as I’m not keen to give myself a paper cut and pour lemon juice over it. In the case of The Savages I was right to despair as it is a very brutal and realistic portrayal of a brother and sister coping with the dementia of their father, blended with their own personal dramas. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is very poignant: beautifully filmed and featuring superb performances, but it’s definitely not a film that I could watch again, it packs too much of a sting and I’m sure people out there who have been through a similar ordeal would agree. 

When they’re father’s girlfriend passes away, it falls to Jon and Wendy Savage to fine a new home for him that can cater for his early stages of dementia. As they’ve only kept in scant contact with their father since their troubled childhood, the task of finding a home for him and making his last moments special brings out the brutal home truths about cold reality, imminent death, and their own broken lives. 

As a literary piece of work, The Savages is a bleak but poignant look at broken families and the horrors of old age and denial. The themes it addresses are universal, but still very gloomy: inevitable death, breakdowns in familial structures and relationships, old age, and the need to cope. Whilst the dementia of the father, Leonard, sets the plot in motion and continues to act as a driving force, this parallel story about sibling rivalry and the effects of neglect and the broken family during childhood comes into play. As our leading characters we have Jon who is an academic, a professor of theatre writing about the dark comedies of Bertold Brecht, and Wendy who’s a playwright working on a play based on her childhood entitled Wake Me When It’s Over. Neither has ever really been able to grow up properly and the film’s beauty manifests itself in their transforming from children to adults: accepting what’s going on, the bleakness of reality, and taking control of what they can. 

Laura Linney stars as Wendy and she was great. She was the character that really needed to grow up and she played the role so well, with all these little cues to hint at her stunted emotional height: sleeping in the foetal position and constantly denying the severity of her father’s state… until he fails to recognise her. Laura was wonderful, she always is. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Jon is perfect really. He plays the role with a reservedness and evident emotional shield, which makes it all the more emotionally heightening when he laughs or cries. I’ve got a soft spot for Philip I have to admit. 

Starring Philip Bosco, Peter Friedman, David Zayas, Gbenga Akinnagbe, and Cara Seymour, The Savages is a beautiful but brutally realist movie filled with death, romance, drama, old age, and the odd smattering of comedy. The story was just too close to the bone for me, but don’t let that sway you if you’re in any way interested in seeing this film. I will say that it’s worth it and it does leave you on a bit of a high note after all the bleakness.