Isoar #29, The Savages.  I haven’t been writing much about any movies recently because I have been consumed with this series of drawings that I have been working on.  Well, I finished that series of drawings last night and there is a movie that has really stuck with me.  The Savages.   I literally knew nothing about this movie other than there were two really talented actors in it (Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney).  I was open to it, so we added it to our Netflix cue.

Plot

The gist of the plot (without spoiling the movie) goes like this……

Laura Linney, (Wendy Savage) plays a writer in NYC that gets a phone call about her father.  Her father has dimentia and there was an episode that forced the aides to contact her (Wendy).  Phillip Seymour Hoffman, (Jon Savage) plays a teacher in upstate New York and Wendy notifies Jon about what happened.  The two didn’t have the best relationship with their father and they are put in a position where they have to make tough decisions with where he will live.

The film takes place in NYC, upstate New York and the various elderly communities and nursing homes that their father lives in.  The movie takes you to these different places and each place really speaks to the nature of the characters and the various stages of life.  I watched Brothers with Jake Gyllenhaal, Toby McGuire and Natalie Portman the day after and watching Brothers really made me appreciate the ending to The Savages even more.  The Savages is dark at times, deals with real issues that people will have to deal with at one point in their life and the ending is really simple.  At the same time, the ending leaves room for the imagination to fill in the blanks.  This is especially true because I watched Brothers the day after, and the ending for Brothers was not very strong.  Now that doesn’t mean that the ending for The Savages is only good by comparison.  The Savages was written and directed by Tamara Jenkins and I think that this combination really made the movie strong, effective and consistent from action to the credits.

Acting

Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a very talented actor.  He also selects very interesting films, so when he is in a film, I am usually up for giving it a chance.  From what I can remember, there is only one movie that comes to mind that I haven’t liked starring Hoffman.  The movie that I am referring to is Synecdoche, New York.  Although I didn’t like the movie, it wasn’t because of Hoffman’s acting.  Synecdoche, New York was written and directed by Charlie Kaufman.  A light bulb should have gone off there.  If you aren’t familiar with Kaufman, many of his films are self involved and it can be too much to handle at times.  Synecdoche, New York is one of those films.  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich and Adaptation were all either written by Kaufman completely or he wrote the screenplay.  These are a few very interesting and creative movies, so if you haven’t seen them, I recommend them.  Back to Phillip Seymour Hoffman though.  Hoffman is known for his emotional intensity and he is very capable of playing explosive characters.  In The Savages, I expected him to explode at some point, but he didn’t.  So, this role was different than a lot of other roles that he has played and he does it very well.  He really nails subtly and you can really get the sense that he is internalizing a lot of emotions.

Laura Linney is also a great actor.  I almost said actress and I don’t mean to be sexist for thinking that.  For me, its just a way of distinguishing between a man and a women who do the same job, like saying “man” and/or “women”.  I like to be able to use words that get to the point, so “actress” is much easier than saying “female actor”.  Anyway, Linney has played so many different types of characters that I really didn’t expect anything specific from her.  In The Savages, she plays a writer that is learning how to deal with death as she goes.  The movie is told from Wendy Savage’s perspective, so it helps that Laura Linney was the main character.  She was really effective in bringing the subtle acting that a dark comedy, like The Savages requires.

Style

Without beating a dead horse, The Savages is a movie that tells a story of people through acting.  The setting also plays a part of the style of story telling, but that is only achieve through analysis of the characters, where they are in their lives and connecting dots that may not be obvious.  So, in a sense, the places (NYC, Upstate NY and the desert) all are subtle actors in the movie as well.  I don’t think there was much room for experimental cinematography, so they used cinematography to emphasize the place, emotion or plot directly.  And since place effects mood, the camera is more of a representation of direct perception, rather than exploring new ways to present these ideas with visual effects.  The camera tells the story of high contrast in the desert, low light and snow in Upstate NY and a bit of everything in NYC which all are directly related to Wendy Savages view on life and the point that she is at in her life.  The style of the movie is very simple.  Great writing, casting and acting where subtlty are told through this realistic story.

Trailer

Ronin

Categories: Isoar

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 29th, 2010 at 13:46 and is filed under Isoar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.