The Savages

Talented filmmaker Tamara Jenkins has taken nearly a decade to follow up on her well-received 1998 debut Slums of Beverly Hills, but this darkly comic exercise in melancholia was worth the wait. Jon Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his sister Wendy (Laura Linney) are middle-aged siblings who have spent decades trying to forget their wildly dysfunctional upbringing. Jon is a low-level academic writing boring tomes in Buffalo, while Wendy is a struggling playwright forced to take odd jobs in Manhattan. Neither seems capable of maintaining a normal romantic relationship. Now, brother and sister are faced with the task of finding a nursing home for their neglectful father (Philip Bosco), who is afflicted with dementia. Writer-director Jenkins manages to find humor in this sad situation, eliciting from her three principal players some of the year's most astonishing performances (Linney snagged an Oscar nom) in a film that features sharply drawn characters (some of whose ripostes are simply devastating). Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include a 21-minute “About the Savages” making-of featurette, two extended scenes (8 min.), a photo gallery, and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a fine film.] (E. Hulse)