Savages (2007)

From a cursory glance at Rotten Tomatoes the 2007 film Savages seems to have garnered pretty uniform critical approval. Not from me however, I thought the film encapsulated the clichéd, self indulgent, off-putting excess of the indie genera. It seems semi-autobiographical, but even if its not it felt navel gazing and self indulgent. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, usually very strong to great actors, are here grown siblings Wendy and Jon Savage. Their father Lenny (Philip Bosco) a difficult and often absent man is now suffering from the early stages of dementia, and the two must travel to Arizona to pick him up and move him back east into assisted living. Hoffman is a literate professor writing a book about Brecht, while Linny is a temp who writes semi-autobiographical plays on the side. Linney here is the kind of conflicted character which is the closest thing she has a cinematic type, she overplays the torture of putting the father she never had a good relationship with into a home, and is also conflicted about the affair she is having with a married man. What kind of person is she, she wonders, and the answer of course is a Savage. I felt like I've seen all of this before, save a few brief moments when this film wasn't a bore it was grating. It's a shame there aren't more movies about grown siblings, but this movie doesn't help that cause. Man this really rubbed me the wrong way. *