What I Watched -- The Savages

The Savages is the story of Wendy and Jon Savage (played by Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who are both great), a brother and sister, neither of whom really has their life on track. They have jobs, but are struggling with both their work passions and their personal passions. What brings them together and drives the movie is their estranged and aging father. His dementia is progressing, and you follow the siblings as they discover their father's situation, relocate him to their area of the country, and try to get him settled in a nursing home.

The whole movie feels a little bit off-kilter. A lot of the shots look more like something that a still photographer would use, rather than a cinematographer. A lot of faces are cut off, or the angle is strange, but it kind of works with this movie. You get the idea that the Wendy and Jon are both a little off in their lives, unsure of what they're doing, where they're going, etc. Then you throw in the complications of having to take care of a father who never really took care of them and navigating the complicated world of elder care. No wonder they feel off-balance. But eventually I stopped noticing that the angles were funny or faces were cut off because the shots work so well to support the story!

This seems to me to be a timely movie. I suspect more and more people are going through a situation similar to Wendy and Jon's, as the average age of our population creeps higher. Maybe we can learn something from their trials and tribulations: if nothing else, siblings have to stick together.