USA: With a dose of realism and wit, film release "The Savages," tackles the difficulties of caring for a parent suffering from dementia

Record ID: 737750

  • Title: USA: With a dose of realism and wit, film release "The Savages," tackles the difficulties of caring for a parent suffering from dementia
  • Date: 29th November 2007
  • Summary: NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA (NOVEMBER 19, 2007) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) WRITER AND DIRECTOR TAMARA JENKINS SAYING: "I actually think it's a movie that studies ageing form all these different points of view, really. In a way the movie is a prism and you're seeing the anxiety of ageing from lots of different perspectives, from the perspective of an ageing dog, to an old man who is suffering from dementia at the end of his life, Phil Bosco, and then these two middle aged siblings who are doggy paddling and not embracing the fact that they're 40 years old and living like perpetual graduate students."
  • Embargoed: 14th December 2007 12:00
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  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA1ACMJBA57VFZ548I4N1394H9
  • Story Text: Writer and director Tamara Jenkins' latest drama "The Savages" takes an unflinching look at ageing with all its sadness.
    Jenkins' sophomore film manages to find the humour in reality though, as the Savage siblings, an unhappy duo struggling with their own arrested development, work together to find a home for their long estranged father who is suffering from dementia.
    Oscar nominated actress Laura Linney plays Wendy Savage, an office temp by day and struggling playwright by night who is having an affair with a married man.
    Linney says she was drawn to the script, which she thought was "perfect" and very human.

    "There are no heroes in this film, they're not your typical protagonists as far as, they are struggling with a lot."
    Jenkins, who won acclaim for her first feature "The Slums of Beverly Hills," says she didn't set out to write about the topic of ageing or dementia. The director says the film isn't just about confronting death, but rather "the movie is a prism and you're seeing the anxiety of ageing from lots of different perspectives, from the perspective of an ageing dog, to an old man who is suffering from dementia at the end of his life, Phil Bosco, and then these two middle aged siblings who are doggy paddling and not embracing the fact that they're 40 years old and living like perpetual graduate students."
    While the family is barely functioning, as Wendy and Jon Savage, Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman weave a tale that is relatable and even sympathetic.
    The family patriarch Lenny, played by Philip Bosco, sets the whole story in motion and gives a powerful performance, that so many who have dealt with dementia or forms of Alzheimer's will relate to.

    "This period of someone's life is something, everyone's filled with such dread about it and so scared of it as I am as anybody is that I think there is a tendency not to want to deal with it intimately because it's just so emotionally difficult," says Linney.
    But the film that debuted at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, strikes a chord with audiences Jenkins says. After watching the film, her experience has been that people want to talk about their own experiences caring for elderly relatives.

    "The Savages" hits theaters in North America on November 28th.
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