Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman are middle-aged siblings still bickering and competing with each other as adults in Tamara Jenkins‘ The Savages. Watch our exclusive clip for a taste of the sharp, critically-lauded comedy!
In The Savages, titular brother and sister John and Wendy Savage live in a state of arrested development, still at odds with each other and with themselves. While professor John (Hoffman) is busy writing books on obscure topics, Wendy (Linney) struggles to make it as a playwright; neither can maintain a healthy relationship. When their ailing father (Philip Bosco) calls for both to help as he slips into dementia, the Savages must revisit their traumatic childhoods and confront their respective shortcomings in order to move on.
Writer-director Jenkins is earning raves for capturing comedy and pathos in equal measure in her first feature film since 1998’s The Slums of Beverly Hills; we interviewed her last January when she premiered The Savages at Sundance. Critics on the festival circuit praised its acute observations across the board: of the sibling dynamic, disaffected yet intellectual 40-something life, and the sad realities of elder care. The Oscar-nominated Linney and Oscar-winning Hoffman have also earned accolades for inhibiting their roles with a meticulous believability.
Click here to watch our exclusive clip from The Savages for a soupcon of the film’s dark humor, the precariously-drawn balance between John and Wendy, and the pair of lived-in, cerebral performances turned in by Hoffman and Linney!
The Savages will be released by Fox Searchlight in select cities on November 28.
