SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

h-70341 Father got dementia and had to be removed out because his girlfriend died. Because of this, a brother and a sister, who used to compete with each other and do not have a taste for each other, reunited to take care of their father. Both of them were brought up by their abusive father so both has some twists in their mind. The sister is not calming, over lust, while the brother is bad tempered too.They found more about each other's life when taking care of his father. They mocked each other at first and do not understand, make fun of the weakness of the other when they find their real life, but both of them are trying their best to take care of their father, and at the end they learned to appreciate each other. The brother appreciates the sister's play, despite that she was rejected. The sister hopes the best of the brothers conference at Poland, where his girlfriend lives.although at the end their father died, and 'this is it', their relationship revives.

punishmentpark And 'The Savages' does instigate unrest to a certain extent. I had intended to watch a horror film or a comedy after this one, but the film is like a heavy meal that will need its time to digest. There is an awful lot going on in this seemingly subdued film.It is a poignant portrait of the family Savage, filled to the brim with dark humor and often painful, but (or: and) deeply human matter. Hoffman and Linley may steal the show, but the screen time that Bosco gets, he takes with both hands. For instance: the moment where he takes the hearing aid out of his ear and pulls the hood over his head while son and daughter continue to argue is, despite the fact one knows he wasn't a good father (he in turn wasn't treated well as a child, either), beautiful, for the lack of a better word.But it isn't all gloom and doom as we witness brother and sister take careful, cautious steps towards a more positive future. On top of all this, 'The Savages' is very aptly filmed.9 out of 10.

SnoopyStyle Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) are malcontent siblings who were abandoned by their mother and abused by their father Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco). Then they are forced to take care of him in his dementia after his girlfriend die and her family kicks him out. Nobody in this family is well adjusted, but they must come to terms with each other.These are great actors doing great work. But simply put, I didn't care for any of the characters. It's never funny because it is just too sad and depressing. These characters are dysfunctional with a capital D. There is a lot of buried anger and frustration. The acting is so superior that there is a real sense of unlikeability here. It's an uncomfortable watch. I'm barely recommending it only because of the brilliant acting.

MBunge This is one of those ostentatiously quiet films and how much you enjoy it will depend greatly on how much you appreciate the lovely and talented Laura Linney.The crux of the story involves Wendy and John Savage (Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman), two prematurely middle-aged siblings suddenly forced to care for their somewhat decrepit and dementia-ridden father (Philip Bosco) after years and years of separation and silence. The plot is really just an excuse, though, to put Wendy and John on display as examples of early 21st century pseudo-adulthood.Wendy is a 39 year old woman with a Masters degree in Fine Arts who still works as a temp, shuttling from one cubicle to another to pay the bills while she fancies her real destiny is to be a playwright. She doesn't like the fact that her situation doesn't reflect what she hopes her talent is, so she self-medicates and lies to others and herself about how her life is going. She's also having an affair with a married man, but she loves his dog far more than she cares about him.John is a 42 year old literature professor who teaches class at a small college in Buffalo and is trying to write a book on Bertolt Brecht. He's completely alienated from his own feelings and lives like he's isolated from the rest of the world. His girlfriend of several years is having to move back to Poland because her visa has expired. She wants to marry John but he refuses, telling Wendy it's because he's afraid she wouldn't be able to get a job in Buffalo. The one thing John does have is his belief that he's smarter than his sister and he doesn't react well when Wendy tells him she got a Guggenheim grant, something he's tried repeatedly to get and failed.The movie is almost entirely focused on how these two people handle this particular situation at this particular point in their lives. It never really goes into their past and how and why Wendy and John got to be the way they are. It never details the extent or nature of their poor relationship with their father. There's only an offhand reference to their mother, and we get only the smallest glimpse of how Wendy and John actually function in the world.The Savages is a comedy but not one that's trying to make anyone laugh that hard. It's almost Seinfeldian in its focus on the humor of the uncomfortable, the awkward and the embarrassing. There's not a lot of "ha ha" funny stuff in the film. It's more like real life where God has written a few more gags into the script than normal.Linney has the biggest role and the most fully realized character and if you enjoy watching her perform, The Savages is quite pleasant. Hoffman is good, but he doesn't have much to do and while the story of grown kids having to take care of their ailing father and reconnect with him has some emotional kick, it never gives you enough about them and their relationship to make you care that much. The film admirably resists being too pretentious, but slides into being too ordinary.Linney is very good, though, and if that sounds like enough for you, The Savages won't be disappointing.