Wednesday, November 25, 2009

I think I'm in love with Laura Linney

I’m taking the easy way out this week and just writing a pretty basic (and spoiler-free) movie review, but it’s for good reason. 2007 in my mind was a very good year for movies, with No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, the Assassination of Jesse James, I’m Not There, Gone Baby Gone, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Bourne Ultimatum… do you see where I’m going with this? It was a good year.

I am also taking the easy way out this week in another way, too: after I wrote this I realized I did not articulate at all just how good the movie I’m discussing is, and instead of re-writing, I’m just going to occasionally interject… now carry on.

The problem is that with so many great, deservedly recognized movies, there were bound to be a couple that don’t get the full credit they should. The Savages isn’t the best movie of that year (it might not even be in the top 5 of that list I just rattled off), but that doesn’t mean it isn’t absolutely great.

As I have mentioned before in my post about Sugar, I find it rare that a movie focuses more on character than plot or theme. This is one of those rare films. Siblings Wendy and Jon Savage (Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman respectively) have to find a nursing home for their father (Philip Bosco) as he struggles with dementia. This all sounds like something overly dramatic, but I assure you it isn’t. It’s actually remarkably funny, and I would probably consider it a comedy more than I would a drama.

Here is my problem with this movie: it IS great, but it is difficult to fully explain why. I love this movie so much that it is legitimately difficult for me to explain why, and that’s really frustrating.

Wendy and Jon’s relationship with their father has never been a particularly good one, and at the beginning of the movie they haven’t seen each other for years. Wendy and Jon are not particularly close with each other either, and the movie follows them as they get to know each other again. The acting is flawless on each of their parts, but let’s be serious, if you get Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney in the same scene, acting will not be your problem. And with the Savages, the writing certainly isn’t a problem either.

The movie begins with a surreal musical sequence that is hilarious before it moves onto some fairly dramatic plot exposition. The first 45 minutes aren’t particularly funny, for that time is spent setting up the main characters’ relationships. This set-up is absolutely essential to the second half of the movie, however, for once the audience knows the characters, the film gets the opportunity to focus on the laughs. And that is the strength of this movie, in my opinion: the writing. I really enjoy movies that set up their world and then just sort of live in it for a while, and in the Savages you get about an hour of that. Wendy and Jon’s relationship is enjoyable to just watch, and I wish more movies would give you something like that.

Because of the setup in the first half of the movie, we know these characters and have an idea as to how they will react. We know that when Jon hurts himself, Wendy will tap into her maternal urges to take care of him while Jon will downplay everything about the injury. Their scene in Jon’s hallway is absolutely hilarious, and it can only be that funny because of the large amount of setup we’re given before we get there.

This movie, as a whole, is hilarious. It’s not just this scene, but also the scene where Jon gets hurt, the cookies scene, the pillow scene, etc.

I think the Savages is very close in tone to Six Feet Under, but without the occasional feeling of self-importance and pretension (that being said, I love Six Feet Under). It is a mixture of comedy and drama, and the comedy is made much funnier because the drama is so effective. Not only do you laugh at the joke, but you also laugh as a release from the fairly heavy subject matter you’ve been paying attention to.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are two of my favourite actors, and they are both perfect in this movie. Yes, they are playing variations of the same character they normally play, but dammit they do it really well. And how many actors out there consistently play drastically different characters anyway? I know Philip Seymour Hoffman does it more often than most, but he still plays the intelligent middle-aged writer type in about half of his movies… he just so happens to excel at it. You could change a few words in those last couple of sentences and it would apply to Linney as well.

This is also Laura Linney’s best performance by a mile. She does almost always play the 40ish upper-middle class woman, but she is unbelievably good at it, and this might be the only movie where we see her character having no real idea about what to do with herself.

I saw this movie once when it first came out, and I absolutely loved it to the point that I was kind of afraid to watch it again in case it wasn’t as good as I remembered it. Well, it’s two years later and it hasn’t gotten any worse. The way the movie builds on its characters is still beautiful, and the jokes haven’t gotten any less funny as time has passed. And while the last scene does sort of bow to a bit of a Hollywood cliché, it works well enough for me.

All things considered, there are few really significant events that happen over the course of our lives, and what the Savage family is dealing with is something that can conceivably happen to most of us. What the movie the Savages tells us, however, is that you don’t need a high-concept movie to be thoroughly entertained. If you start with something that is well written, you’ve got a good chance to make a great, entertaining movie… the problem is that nobody will promote it other than bloggers who beg their friends to watch it.

WATCH THE SAVAGES! Seriously, it’s just so damn good. But maybe I should change a word in that last sentence from “beg” to “yell at.”

3 comments:

  1. "She does almost always play the 40ish upper-middle class woman"

    I hate that!
    It's like, can you play a teenage upper-middle class boy? But don't even try to portray an elderly upper-middle class hermaphrodite!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Alright, alright, valid point. I guess I should have said she always plays very much the same type of upper-middle class woman. An intelligent, writer-type who doesn't quite have her shit together... is that better?

    ReplyDelete
  3. hahaha I'm so funny! I made you realize that although I completely understood what you meant, you could have explained Laura Linney's "type" a bit better.
    Ha!
    Blog: 0
    EmmaJenn: 1173

    ReplyDelete