The Savages

A film about two siblings who have to look after an ageing father. Wendy lives in New York. She wants to be a playwright, works temporary jobs, and her grant applications are constantly rejected. Jon teaches at a university. He is writing a book on theatre, has not finished it in years, and his relationship has stalled. Neither has spoken to their father in years. A phone call comes. He had been living in Arizona with a woman, the woman has died, and her family is putting him out of the house. They go. They find their father with a diagnosis of dementia. From there the film is a search for a care home. Brochures, visits, price lists, forms and a room. Wendy wants a better place. Jon argues for the money and for realism, and the two fight over it. What the narrative is interested in is not care but debt: neither sibling knows what they owe a man who treated them badly, and the film does not answer it. The past is never told. What the father did to them is only implied and the narrative never goes back to a scene. There is humour and it is merciless. The sales talks at the care home, the things the siblings throw at each other, and a theatre rehearsal are the narrative's places to breathe. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards: Laura Linney for actress, Tamara Jenkins for original screenplay. Laura Linney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Philip Bosco are in the cast. Tamara Jenkins wrote and directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes family drama told without ornament. Who it is not for: anyone expecting resolution; nobody heals, nobody reconciles, and the ending amounts to a small stirring.