Review of The Savages (2007) by Filipeneto — 25 May 2021

Personally, I expected more from this film. The idea is good, and the family drama was well done, but a lot of it is based on the excellent work of the actors and not so much on the merit of the story told. I appreciated the work of the actors, but that is not enough to make a good film. It's bearable, it's worth it from the point of view of dramatic work, but that's basically it.

The story revolves around an elderly man who begins to suffer from Alzheimer's and dementia. He has two children: one is a drama teacher and the other is a freelancer who has an affair with a married man. The family's past was not the best, and the two have harsh memories of their father, of a complicated childhood, and returning to take care of their father, although it is an obligation, is not an easy task for either of them. However, they come back, look for a home for him and try to take care of him in the last days of his life.

The film is a well-constructed drama, but it doesn't have much to give the audience other than a succession of dialogues and familiar scenes of conflict and tension. It is a somewhat tiring film after some time, and the feeling I got is that we spent almost two hours watching fights based on or originating in quarrels from the family past. Another problem with this film is the fact that there is no empathy between the audience and the characters.

Instead of a more appealing or interesting story, the film presents us with an excellent work of acting and interpretation by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. The two actors are very good and have given themselves completely to their characters, developing them very well and revealing a psychology and a considerable wealth of feelings, which is not usual in the most "mainstream" films today. Philip Bosco gives life to the disagreeable father and is quite good at this task, but he has very little to do. Peter Friedman and Rosemary Murphy appear in frankly secondary characters and can add little.

Technically, it is a discreet and frankly uninteresting film. Cinematography is limited to the basics and I have not seen any effects worth mentioning. The soundtrack is almost silent and the feeling I had is that the film has an excessively slow and dragged rhythm in some parts, which was not pleasant.