Despite its dark humor, The Savages tackles the tough topics of aging, frailty, humiliation and death. All depressing stuff, to be sure, but Jenkins handles it with a delicate, sweet touch, and without being maudlin. One of the best dvd movies of the year so far.

Exactly like I thought it would be for about 96 of its 113-minute running time. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are typically superb as a brother and sister brought together to care for their aging father in Tamara Jenkins’ acute, if sometimes sluggish, follow-up to Slums of Beverly Hills. At its best, The Savages captures the lunacy that comes with coping with sorrow. The latter half suffers from degenerative indie-itis, that epidemic syndrome whose main symptom is unwarranted interest in the ennui afflicting well-read urban misfits.

Although The Savages is a better dvd movies for not being a cloying, schmaltzy tear-jerker, that doesn’t mean that it’s a movie you will necessarily enjoy. Jenkins couldn’t have found actors more suited to straddle the delicate, subtle line between detestable and sympathetic. A goo-free comedy. Exactly like I thought it would be for about 96 of its 113-minute running time. It’s billed as a comedy.

You may or may not find much to laugh at. Jenkins’ superlative work proves her first film was no fluke let’s hope it doesn’t take another nine years to hear from her again.

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