Sweetly Savage

Ageing is a difficult subject to tackle in any film and you know it's going to either be a humourous look at cute old people or a depressing examination of the effects of age. Tamara Jenkins' new unsentimental tragicomedy is both - with the line so blurred that it makes every laugh stick in your throat.

The film centres around a rather dysfunctional brother and sister, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney who are interrupted from dwelling on their own emotional turmoil by their father’s continual demise through dementia. Having left their father Lenny Savage (Brosco) to be ‘kept’ by his girlfriend Doris’s children the siblings suffer a blow when Doris dies and Lenny’s antics, including an unpleasant scene of smearing faeces, on a mirror lead Doris’s children to pass over responsibility to his own children Wendy (Linney) and Jon(Hoffman).

Wendy is an emotionally challenged and frequently dishonest woman who is having an affair with a married man. Her brother Jon is consumed by his struggle to finish his book on playwright Bertol Brecht and having difficulty committing to his long term girlfriend. Niether sibling is particularly endearing and Lenny is a bit of a grumpy old sod. It is the imperfections of the characters that makes this more than a sentimental flick. It humanises them immensely and gives them significant depth. This is not a laugh-out-loud kind of film but it could be, it just narrowly avoids it. One particular scene where Lenny's trousers fall down would in any other film be a moment of slapstick comedy but here humour would only used to dispel any sense of embarrassment.

Jenkins' film is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea as the slow pace and themes will leave many feeling rather empty but as an exploration of ageing and the testing of family ties whatever the relationship is quite beautiful. With three of the best actors in the business playing astonishingly complex human roles, don't expect to be thrilled or hugely moved but be impressed by a wonderful script and superb acting.