Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are in peak form in this American black comedy as brother and sister obliged to care for their estranged father. "Terrific." — Entertainment Weekly
Screened as part of NZIFF 2008
The Savages 2007
In this rueful and beautifully acted black comedy a middle-aged brother and sister who've never quite grown up are suddenly obliged to care for an increasingly out-of-it father who never really cared for them.
"The Savages is terrific - a movie of uncommon appreciation for the nature and nurture that go into making us who we are, a perfectly calibrated drama both compassionate and unsentimental... Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney - two of the most focused, natural actors working today - are in peak form, and together they play off each other with the unfettered, joyous collaboration of great chamber musicians... The Savages is bruisingly funny in the damnedest places, the way life is." — Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly.
"I can't begin to count the ways in which The Savages pleased me, but the very best of them is the way Tamara Jenkins's comedy stays tough while sneakily turning tender." — Joe Morgenstern, The Wall St Journal