The Savages vs Away From Her

We don’t know, exactly, how the Savage kids were raised. They don’t seem to know that much about each others childhood, despite being close in age, and while they amuse and respect each other, there is much unsaid, both out of apprehension and sadness. Childhood wasn’t easy for the Savages, but as we soon learn, adulthood’s no peach either.

Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) is having an affair—one she’s barely interested in, and almost completely humiliated by—with a married man. She seems more fond of his dog than of him, and she’s even more fond of prescription medication. Wendy has prescriptions of her own (for depression), but she’ll take a pain-killer, or two, if the opportunity presents itself. Wendy’s a playwright, but is even less successful at that than she is in her romantic life. Wendy’s brother is Jon (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), a theatre professor writing a book even he finds a little boring. Jon’s got a Polish girlfriend who will be deported if he doesn’t marry her, but Jon’s truly only ready to commit to his own suffering. Oh, and their father, who abused and neglected them as children (their mother never appears in the movie, and apparently was even worse), is suffering from dementia, and needs a new place to live. Jon and Wendy reunite to bring their dad to New York to try and find a nursing home suitable enough to care for him until he dies. Fun, right?

I’ve watched Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in some downer movies, but you have to trust me when I say that The Savages is not one of them. The Savages is prickly and awkward and sad as hell, sure. But it’s also hilarious and human, and note-perfect in every performance, prop, line of dialogue, and costume. The Savages is one of those movies where you’ll see a character put on what he thinks is a nice shirt, and think, God, that is the perfect ugly shirt for someone who thinks he’s wearing a nice shirt, but isn’t. The Savages isn’t quite the best movie of 2007, but man, is it close.

There’s honestly not much to tell about The Savages, beyond its plot, without spoiling how rich and interesting the characters are. Suffice to say, Linney and Hoffman bring a sibling warmth and shorthand to the screen that I haven’t seen between movie siblings since Linney’s last prickly/awkward/sad as hell/hilarious/human/note perfect sibling movie, You Can Count on Me. If I had the power to grant Oscars, Linney would get one for a scene in which she kisses someone she shouldn’t, and responds by recoiling and referring to herself as “gross” over and over. And Phillip Seymour Hoffman is Phillip Seymour Hoffman, which frankly should be enough for you at this point. I can think of no substitute pleasures for you if you do not enjoy watching this guy act. Phillip Bosco plays their father. I always wonder how roles like this are cast. I suppose it’s less than flattering to be told you’re perfect for the role of a shit-smearing, neglectful, demented old man on death’s door, but Phillip Bosco is great. His kids aren’t fond of him, but they love him anyway. It’s easy to put that on paper, but harder to sell.

The Savages was written and directed by Tamara Jenkins, who hasn’t made a movie since Slums of Beverly Hills. It was worth the wait. The Savages is full of truth and life, and is filmed warmly without being sappy. Everything’s lit realistically, the apartments are tiny and messy and lived in. The nursing home the Savages find for their father is what you picture when you say things like “I hope I never have to live in a nursing home,” yet it’s not the nightmare movie nursing home it could have been in less graceful hands.

There was another film this year with a plot strikingly similar to that of The Savages. But while The Savages presents lives and people you’ll recognize instantly, Away from Her presents movie characters. And I love movie characters, but when the storyline is one of supposed grace, sadness and loss, I guess I prefer the artifice to disappear a bit. And in Away from Her, it never does.

The problem is not with the actors. Julie Christie stars as Fiona, a woman living with Alzheimer’s disease. We don’t see the beginning of her symptoms; she’s already fully into the debilitating effects of the disease when the movie starts. Her speech has a lilting, childlike quality, and she’s losing her memory. As long as Fiona is just saying moony things, forgetting names, and making little mistakes like putting a skillet in the freezer, her disease seems manageable. But Fiona also wanders off and gets lost on occasion, and knows she’ll eventually need more care and attention than her husband can give her. Christie is heartbreaking. Fiona knows more about her disease than she is letting on; it’s her idea initially to move out of the home. I think she might even be exaggerating some of the effects a bit, to show her husband how bad things will be if he doesn’t cooperate with her decision. Fiona’s husband, Grant, is played by an actor named Gordon Pinsent, whom I do not recall seeing in a movie before. He has a role similar to Jim Broadbent’s in Iris, playing the more sedate character whose suffering is based largely on the guilt he feels about possibly moving on with his life as his mate forgets him. Pinsent gives, I think, the strongest performance in the film (which is saying a lot, since Away from Her survives completely based on its great performances).  He’s grief-stricken, yet hopeful, and makes a couple desperate decisions that will leave you stunned.

See, Fiona is required to spend thirty days in her new home (which is so softly-lit and overly designed you’ll want to live there too) without visitors. And when Grant finally gets to visit, Fiona seems to know him only casually. She’s replaced him with another patient, a mute man she’s started caring for. Grant tries to separate them, and to win back Fiona’s affections, going so far as to meet with the man’s wife (Olympia Dukasis, who cuts to both the chase and the quick in each of her scenes), and ask her to move her husband from the facility. This is heavy stuff.

Sarah Polley wrote and directed Away from Her, and in handling her actors, she’s done an admirable job. The dialogue sounds so much like dialogue though. For a more stylized piece, this would be a little smoother. And Away from Her is shot through a million filters, like it’s co-hosting The View or something. We know the characters are older, and Away from Her is so much about the reality of the aging process, I’m not sure what it would have hurt to dial down a bit on the halos everyone sports throughout the movie. As The Savages shows us, sometimes ugly is as beautiful as any of us in the audience really need in the first place.

The Savages: A

Away from Her: B-