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My stomach or rather my bowels have decided to rage war on me today. Feeling icky and crampy as a result. And not at all well. Which is putting a bit of a damper on my weekend plans, not that I really had any - but still. Oh well, better to be icky on the weekend than during the work week, when I can stay home and pamper myself.
Saw a rather good flick last night, courtesy of netflix, about a middle-aged brother and sister putting their father into a nursing home. It's called The Savages and stars Laura Linney, Philip Seymore Hoffman, and Philip Bosco. Reminds me a lot of those 1970s character centric films such as Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Five Easy Pieces, Lovers and Other Strangers, The Swimmer, and Carnal Knowledge. Found it oddly comforting in places and darkly humorous. About a 39 year old struggling playwrite/temp and her 42 year old brother putting their ailing and somewhat distant father into a nursing home.
The film reminded me of another film I'd seen recently, Margot at the Wedding starring Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black, and Ciran Hinds. And why is it that the best female roles right now are in these types of films? On second thought, don't answer that.
Margot like The Savages -dealt with a sibling relationship, which is complex and contains equal levels of dissonance and affection. What separated the two - is one deals with the family relationship through the eyes of children and taking care of children as well as dealing with romantic partners, but mostly children, while the other deals with the necessity of taking care of an elderly parent.
I liked The Savages more, but that was mostly due to the fact that I could identify with the characters and situation better. In the Savages, Wendy and John Savage take the father, who is suffering from dementia from Sun City, Arizona to a nursing home in Buffalo, New York. It is about their relationship with one another and with their father, who hadn't really been there for them while they were growing up. Like Margot at the Wedding, it contains scenes that stick with you long after the movie has finished, like snapshots frozen on the brain. I didn't like Margot that much, but it does haunt me. I saw it several weeks ago and I can remember it better than PS: I Love You which I saw two nights ago. There's a scene in Margot, where the lead character, portrayed by Nicol Kidman, is humilated by her lover at a book reading/interview. He's interviewing her regarding her new book. And asks rather pointedly if she thinks that the book might be somewhat semi-autobiographical and that the cruel and distant father in the book may in fact be herself. Margot stammers that no, the book has zip to do with her life, and that as a writer one does tend to take things from one's own life and twist them a bit like this experience she had recently where she ...and she proceeds to dig herself into a deeper and deeper hole relating a story that comes across as somewhat elitist and almost racist...realizing it halfway through, she chokes on her words, stumbles out of her chair, states she has to go to the ladies room and stumbles awkwardly out of the gathering. It is a brilliant scene which Kidman handles so perfectly, I found myself wondering if the critics who accused her of using too much botox were completely stoned. That scene and one other, where she is pressed into climbing a tree by her sister and son only to get stuck at the very top requiring rescue from firemen, haunted me. They demonstrated how easily those we think love us can at times do us the most harm and, more importantly, how we enable them to do it. Making it clear that Margot's worst enemy like most of us, is herself.
In The Savages - the film is gentler and less harsh to its characters. But then the characters are more likeable. The humilating scenes both surround an elder support group. The first entails the two siblings, John and Wendy, showing up late to the group, and standing at the back listening, while snacking on cookies - only to be scolded by the leader - that they have not handed out the treats yet and not to eat them. Embarrassed, John and Wendy put their half-eaten cookies back on the table and sneak into seats in the back. In the second scene, they are watching an old classic film with their father and the other residents and inhabitants of the center. The film they selected is an old 1920s Al Johnson picture, including black face. Which is of course offensive to the support staff - the nurses and caregivers, as well as some of the residents. They realize this half way through and simultaneously cringe in their seats. It becomes apparent at that point that they had brought the film, hoping to make their father happy. Instead at one point during it, their father gets up and yells at the screen, convinced he is watching a memory of his own life and not a movie at all.
Wickedly funny in places, I roared with laughter during one particular sequence, and sad in others, The Savages is an excellent depiction of what it is like to put an elderly parent in a nursing home minus the hallmark card smultz which permeates most of these films like a bad rash. It's also a good depiction of what these places are truly like. As John Savage states at one point - "they are about hiding death, the rotten stinky ugliness of death from those of us who can't quite deal with it yet". In the extras following the film, the writer/director - stated that she wanted to do a movie that showed the day to day struggle of just being an okay, not necessarily great, just okay human being in this life. On that note the Savages succeeds quite well.
At the end of the film I found myself smiling. The characters had moved on to a better spot than the one they started in, but they did so in a way that was realistic and not smultzy or filled with melodrama. I highly recommend it. One of the better films I've seen this year.
In regards to Margot at the Wedding? It is not as good a film as the Savages, a bit long-winded in places, with a choppy narrative structure, but it is haunting and it is an interesting look into the life of two sisters. Certainly worth a rental.
Saw a rather good flick last night, courtesy of netflix, about a middle-aged brother and sister putting their father into a nursing home. It's called The Savages and stars Laura Linney, Philip Seymore Hoffman, and Philip Bosco. Reminds me a lot of those 1970s character centric films such as Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Five Easy Pieces, Lovers and Other Strangers, The Swimmer, and Carnal Knowledge. Found it oddly comforting in places and darkly humorous. About a 39 year old struggling playwrite/temp and her 42 year old brother putting their ailing and somewhat distant father into a nursing home.
The film reminded me of another film I'd seen recently, Margot at the Wedding starring Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jack Black, and Ciran Hinds. And why is it that the best female roles right now are in these types of films? On second thought, don't answer that.
Margot like The Savages -dealt with a sibling relationship, which is complex and contains equal levels of dissonance and affection. What separated the two - is one deals with the family relationship through the eyes of children and taking care of children as well as dealing with romantic partners, but mostly children, while the other deals with the necessity of taking care of an elderly parent.
I liked The Savages more, but that was mostly due to the fact that I could identify with the characters and situation better. In the Savages, Wendy and John Savage take the father, who is suffering from dementia from Sun City, Arizona to a nursing home in Buffalo, New York. It is about their relationship with one another and with their father, who hadn't really been there for them while they were growing up. Like Margot at the Wedding, it contains scenes that stick with you long after the movie has finished, like snapshots frozen on the brain. I didn't like Margot that much, but it does haunt me. I saw it several weeks ago and I can remember it better than PS: I Love You which I saw two nights ago. There's a scene in Margot, where the lead character, portrayed by Nicol Kidman, is humilated by her lover at a book reading/interview. He's interviewing her regarding her new book. And asks rather pointedly if she thinks that the book might be somewhat semi-autobiographical and that the cruel and distant father in the book may in fact be herself. Margot stammers that no, the book has zip to do with her life, and that as a writer one does tend to take things from one's own life and twist them a bit like this experience she had recently where she ...and she proceeds to dig herself into a deeper and deeper hole relating a story that comes across as somewhat elitist and almost racist...realizing it halfway through, she chokes on her words, stumbles out of her chair, states she has to go to the ladies room and stumbles awkwardly out of the gathering. It is a brilliant scene which Kidman handles so perfectly, I found myself wondering if the critics who accused her of using too much botox were completely stoned. That scene and one other, where she is pressed into climbing a tree by her sister and son only to get stuck at the very top requiring rescue from firemen, haunted me. They demonstrated how easily those we think love us can at times do us the most harm and, more importantly, how we enable them to do it. Making it clear that Margot's worst enemy like most of us, is herself.
In The Savages - the film is gentler and less harsh to its characters. But then the characters are more likeable. The humilating scenes both surround an elder support group. The first entails the two siblings, John and Wendy, showing up late to the group, and standing at the back listening, while snacking on cookies - only to be scolded by the leader - that they have not handed out the treats yet and not to eat them. Embarrassed, John and Wendy put their half-eaten cookies back on the table and sneak into seats in the back. In the second scene, they are watching an old classic film with their father and the other residents and inhabitants of the center. The film they selected is an old 1920s Al Johnson picture, including black face. Which is of course offensive to the support staff - the nurses and caregivers, as well as some of the residents. They realize this half way through and simultaneously cringe in their seats. It becomes apparent at that point that they had brought the film, hoping to make their father happy. Instead at one point during it, their father gets up and yells at the screen, convinced he is watching a memory of his own life and not a movie at all.
Wickedly funny in places, I roared with laughter during one particular sequence, and sad in others, The Savages is an excellent depiction of what it is like to put an elderly parent in a nursing home minus the hallmark card smultz which permeates most of these films like a bad rash. It's also a good depiction of what these places are truly like. As John Savage states at one point - "they are about hiding death, the rotten stinky ugliness of death from those of us who can't quite deal with it yet". In the extras following the film, the writer/director - stated that she wanted to do a movie that showed the day to day struggle of just being an okay, not necessarily great, just okay human being in this life. On that note the Savages succeeds quite well.
At the end of the film I found myself smiling. The characters had moved on to a better spot than the one they started in, but they did so in a way that was realistic and not smultzy or filled with melodrama. I highly recommend it. One of the better films I've seen this year.
In regards to Margot at the Wedding? It is not as good a film as the Savages, a bit long-winded in places, with a choppy narrative structure, but it is haunting and it is an interesting look into the life of two sisters. Certainly worth a rental.
