The Savages – Depressing, Dark, Funny Film Not The Comedy It Purports To Be?

Ok first off. Go see Tamara Jenkins’ new film “The Savages” starring Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. It’s excellent. However, be forewarned that it is a bit of false advertising.

We hesitate to even write this, as it is a worthwhile film we definitely feel like championing, but Fox Searchlight (who might win the myspace-y, viral youth marketing film award for 2007) have done a great job marketing this film to a slightly younger demographic and making it feel like it’s much more fun and light than it actually is.

Let’s face it, it’s called making a smart, enticing trailer, but there is a bit of disconnect here. We’re probably slightly responsible/been suckered exactly in the way we were meant to.

As we noted in a excited preview piece, the soundtrack supervisor is Randall Poster (which piqued our interest, he’s done music supervision for countless movies, most recently “I’m Not There” and “The Darjeeling Limited”), the trailer – which is funny, facetious and sardonic on its own – features good tracks by Spoon and Rob Crow, and the poster for the film is straight out of an Optic Nerve or Daniel Clowes alternative comic.

For all intents and purposes this film is aimed at us and presumably those we believe are our readers (hello to all 12 of you).

However, this is not the film that’s up on screen. Jenkins, as we’ve mentioned many times, directed the very excellent, “The Slums of Beverly Hills” in 1998 and hasn’t made a feature film since for various reasons ( “It’s the Terrence Malick schedule without the masterpieces,” Jenkins joked to the Onion A/V Club, adding she worked on a few projects in the interim that didn’t pan out), but this one has a much darker tone than her previous work too.

And with good reason, it’s an original script based on her autobiographical personal experiences taking care of her dying father, but it did admittedly throw us at first (like the film, she similarly had two family members in nursing homes both suffering from dementia, but she insists that the rest of the tale is fictionalized; it’s a jumping off point)

So to back up a bit: The Savages is about two sibling John and Wendy Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney) whose father is suffering from dementia and they’re forced to put their selfish, narcissistic existence on hold and take care of their dying father. If it sounds dark and depressing and a little bit more reality than some of us want to deal with that’s cause it is, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t funny and enjoyable (there’s some great dark and inappropriate comedy moments). But it’s certainly not whimsical.

Now, we’re not complaining. Frankly, we’re ideologically opposed to what we call the “hipster film” (“Eternal Sunshine,” I Heart Huckabees”), not because these films usually aren’t good (our examples: the former yes, the latter, no), but specifically because people tend to generally like them for all the wrong, mostly superficial reasons (cool music, cool this, cool that; it’s all another post unto itself). But caveat emptor (but this is where we’re afraid people are going to get turned off that this isn’t “cool” pain).

Ok, enough preamble now for the actual review. That aside and once we eased into what was being offered. But it’s not an easy movie. Like “Margot At The Wedding,” it deals with a lot of difficult and prickly emotions (watching your parents get old, suffer and then die isn’t easy) and it’s dealt with in a frank, raw and of course a humorous manner, but it’s not a light comedy to be sure.

If anything, there’s more emotion than say ‘Margot’ as there is no cold intellectualizing characters that sometimes make you feel one step removed.

“The Savages” isn’t savaging emotionally nor comedically, but it is affecting, indelicately funny, melancholy, and sometimes painful. Trying to mirror real life, it doesn’t leave you with one redemptive (or feel-good) emotion to let you off the hook in the end; there’s no tiny bow. If anything it leaves you with a mix of confused and mixed emotions. Nothing is ever cut and dry and Jenkins does her best to keep the story and characters honest. And you can’t help but admire the film for doing so. [B+] The Savages comes out in limited release tomorrow (November 30).

PS. there’s not to much in terms of music, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the inclusion of The Kinks’ “Sitting by The Riverside” (from The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society) and the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Sticking With You” (from the VU boxset Peel Slowly And See) featured in the closing credits. There were a few other tracks, but they went by quick.