The Savages offers an interesting look at sibling dynamics in the face of dealing with an aging parent, a topic that hasn't been dealt with much before. Usually when a film focuses on senility and the world of retirement homes the subject is presented through a slightly blurred lens to make the impact of it a little harsher. On top of that, the storyline almost always focuses on one person trying to figure out how to take care of the aging martyr – usually a spouse or one child who has taken the initiative over their more selfish siblings. Not so in The Savages. This storyline is fresh, the ideas explored about death, sibling rivalry, family reliance and guilt are really powerful and are told in a very human and honest light.

Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman play Wendy and Jon Savage, a brother and sister who don't speak much but have quite a bit in common. They both have issues with relationships and are unable to make commitments. They also both have anxiety problems and because they were pretty much abandoned by their parents, have form a shaky alliance together despite their ongoing competitions with each other. Both are playwrights, Wendy works mainly as a temp and is trying to get a grant to work on her plays full time, while Jon is a doctor of philosophy and writes books and plays on the side. One day Wendy gets a call saying that her father has started smearing his fecal matter on the walls, and while this disturbs her she doesn't really take action until her father's live-in girlfriend dies and they have to go to the funeral.

When they arrive to the land of old folks, Sun City, Arizona, Wendy and Jon find out that not only is their father becoming more and more senile by the minute, but he also has no place to live as he has pretty much been mooching off his girlfriend and her family for years. Wendy and Jon have to find a place for him to live and begin dealing with the issues that millions of families have gone through with the aging generation. What makes their struggle so interesting is that they have the added complication of the fact that their father never expressed any sort of love for them, yet they're trying to take the best care of him that they can.

Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman have a great sibling chemistry that can be recognized by anyone with a brother or sister universally. They bicker constantly, but in the end they are each other's only true allies. The duo is the real strength of this film, and without their complimentary personalities, the movie would have been lackluster at best. Also, their chemistry was not quite enough to carry the film or cover up its weaknesses. While in the end I really enjoyed it, a lot of things really bothered me. Wendy's character, for example, was selfish, immature and annoying her own but with the balance of Jon's cool head and humility she was almost bearable. It also really bothered me when he writer/director resorted to bathroom humor for a cheap, rare laugh. We all know that many seniors have to wear adult diapers, but the slapsticky moment when the father's pants fell down on an airplane was used only for a brief laugh and not to look at the guilt and shame that Wendy would have felt in real life for putting her father in that situation.

Overall, The Savages was very well written and well acted, but pretty forgettable. It was caught in a weird place between comedy and really heart-wrenching drama, so a move one way or the other would have made it more powerful. Again, the film was really saved by the chemistry of its main actors and I loved that it looked more at a brother/sister relationship rather than a more cliché father/child situation.