Savages/ Lonely/ Moms

If I had any doubt as to whether or not to recommend The Savages to my mom I had only to take one look around at the crowd lining up outside the theatre. The room was full of my moms. Ratio of my moms to me: 500 to 1. Mom has good taste.

I must say I prefer good movies to bad ones. I really do. But fuck is it boring to write reviews where the best you can think to say is, "really great, wouldn’t change a thing!" So yeah. The Savages. It’s a really great movie! I wouldn’t change a thing!

It has been a long road for Tamara Jenkins since her feature debut The Slums of Beverly Hills. It was a wonderful first film, but for many years it looked like it may also be Jenkins' last. Whether she was plagued by a lack of inspiration or stuck in development hell, the public has waited nine years for her follow up. The wait has definitely been worth it. The Savages is wonderfully paced, perfectly performed, avoids the clichés, and is surprisingly funny. Not “quietly clever” funny, but “laugh out loud at the wealth of visual gags” funny, all within a moving drama about familiar people with too familiar flaws.

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are together at last. Oh, how I love them. And this film is a perfect demonstration of just why that is. Both are incredible as the co-leads. The two play not-so-close siblings in a wildly estranged family who are brought together to care for their father when he begins to suffer from dementia. Their performances are perfect in a movie that demands a great range and a great deal of subtlety. Though the set up may sound like it, this isn’t a Hallmark Hall of Fame joint. Though there is some heart string tugging it is far from over the top, and it is tempered with a lot of humour, often within the same few seconds. Linney has demonstrated her talent for dry comedy before, but Hoffman keeps up, if not surpasses her.

If you have ever experienced a level of estrangement from your family you should find this film deeply affecting. It actually left my film-going companion unconsciously performing deep breathing exercises for several minutes after the final scene. Intense. If you haven’t experienced that estrangement before: fuck you.

This one isn’t coming out till the Christmas blitz of award fodder, but after nine years, what’s a couple more months? It will give you time to make amends with family members. Seriously, call them.

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Immediately upon leaving that screening it was right back into line for Mr. Lonely, Harmony Korine’s long awaited new feature. The crowd magically lost about thirty years in that transition.

This was another terrific film in a day of terrific films. Obviously it is far different in tone that The Savages, but Mister Lonely is a far more conventional film for Korine than anything we’ve seen from him before. This is clear from the opening shot: a beautiful long-take in stunning, vividly coloured scope film. A take of a Michael Jackson impersonator (Diego Luna) winding his way along a track on his yellow mini-bike, with a stuffed Bubbles chimp in tow. We follow Fake Mike through the streets of Paris as he tries to eek out a living. He is fallowing his passion, but things just aren’t clicking until he happens upon a lovely Marilyn Monroe impersonator (Samantha Morton). She convinces him to join her on a Scottish estate that has developed into a commune of passionately committed celebrity impersonators. Though the story is unusual it follows the lines of a traditional narrative. Coming from Korine, such a shift seems positively subversive. There is also a strange second thread we slip in and out of involving Werner Herzog as a priest in Panama with a group of flying nuns. The thread is a touch jarring at first, but the eventual convergence of themes is wonderful, and these sections provide some of the most incredibly striking and absorbing visuals I’ve seen on screen in quite some time.

GOOD DAY FOR MOVIES.

Aaron.
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Posted on 09/13/07 by: Aaron 10:27 PM

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