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74
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30
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P2
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Savages, The
78
Starting Out in the Evening
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71
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43
Youth Without Youth
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
92
There Will Be Blood
85
Savages, The
84
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
83
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
81
Juno
81
Bamako
78
Starting Out in the Evening
77
Nanking
74
Orphanage, The
71
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
71
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
70
Lars and the Real Girl
69
Charlie Wilson's War
68
Business of Being Born, The
68
Delirious
68
War Dance
65
Great Debaters, The
64
Cloverfield
63
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
63
11th Hour, The
63
Hannah Takes the Stairs
60
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
57
Romulus, My Father
57
Teeth
55
Resurrecting the Champ
53
Music Within
52
Hollywood Dreams
51
Golden Compass, The
49
Good Night, The
47
Bella
47
Lions for Lambs
47
27 Dresses
46
Reservation Road
44
Nina's Heavenly Delights
43
Youth Without Youth
43
Final Season, The
41
Mad Money
41
First Sunday
39
Alvin and the Chipmunks
39
P.S. I Love You
38
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
37
P2
32
Untraceable
30
Over Her Dead Body
30
Cover
29
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
24
One Missed Call
15
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
7
Hottie and the Nottie, The
xx
Moondance Alexander
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Savages, The
Fox Searchlight Pictures
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for some sexuality and language
Starring
Laura Linney,
Philip Seymour Hoffman,
and
Philip Bosco
The Savages is an irreverent look at family, love and mortality as seen through the lens of one of modern life’s most bewildering and challenging experiences: when adult siblings find themselves plucked from their everyday, self-centered lives to care for an estranged elderly parent. (Fox Searchlight)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Drama
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Tamara Jenkins
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Tamara Jenkins
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: April 22, 2008
Theatrical: November 28, 2007
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
113 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
The Savages is terrific -- a movie of uncommon appreciation for the nature and nurture that go into making us who we are, a perfectly calibrated drama both compassionate and unsentimental.

100
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
A brutal encounter with mortality told with uncommon humanity, wit and humor.

91
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
This movie provides no phony catharsis or closure; it develops a vision of people growing in spurts from their most terrible mistakes.

90
Time
Richard Schickel
I wouldn't call the film inspirational -- it is too well observed to succumb to easy sentiment -- but its realism is patiently engaging and subtly insinuating. And Linney and Hoffman are extraordinary.

90
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
What makes the movie memorable is the precision of its tone, its finely calibrated combination of bitterness and warmth. Of course the acting is tremendous, and you'd expect nothing less.

90
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Bringing a tough, astringent wit to a subject too often wrapped in the cozy blanket of sentimentality or cute humor, Tamara Jenkins takes a frank look at the indignities of aging in The Savages, a black comedy that invites viewers to laugh or at least smile ruefully at the dying of the light.

90
The New York Times
Manohla Dargis
Tamara Jenkins’s The Savages, is a beautifully nuanced tragicomedy about two floundering souls.

90
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
It is more sad-funny than funny-funny, but Jenkins has enough empathy and wit to realize that even the sad parts are, somehow, funny.

90
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Jenkins brings a rigor, intelligence and eye for the slightly absurd to the proceedings that is instantly disarming.

90
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
The Savages is a delightful movie--the perfect companion piece (and antidote) to the year’s other superb convalescent-dementia picture, "Away From Her."

90
Newsweek
David Ansen
It sounds grimmer than it plays, thanks to Jenkins's sardonic, deadpan humor and the superb cast, who invest these damaged characters with rich, flawed, hilarious humanity. This bittersweet X-ray of American family dynamics may not be a Hallmark-card notion of a holiday movie, but it's one any son or daughter can take to heart.

89
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
Jenkins' superlative work proves her first film was no fluke; let's hope it doesn't take another nine years to hear from her again.

88
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
A movie of absurdist humor, brutal realism and dementia.

88
Chicago Tribune
Jessica Reaves
A bracingly honest, funny movie about death and family that skillfully sidesteps the usual pitfalls of sentimentality and mawkishness. It’s what you might call an awards season miracle.

88
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Smartly written and beautifully played, The Savages is about that point in life where you look around and realize that where you are is probably as far as you're going to get. In spite of this, the movie's a comedy, dry and humane.

88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Both Linney and Hoffman are so specific in creating these characters that we see them as people, not elements in a plot. Hoffman in particular shows how many disguises he has within his seemingly immutable presence; would you know it is the same actor here and in two other films this season, "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" and "Charlie Wilson's War"?

88
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
With the help of acting giants, Jenkins turns The Savages into a twisted, bittersweet pleasure.

88
USA Today
Claudia Puig
While the film is heart-wrenchingly sad, it also is mordantly funny, uncomfortably prickly and above all, unflinching in its depiction of a believable sibling relationship.

88
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
I generally resist calling any actor's work "brave" or "fearless" or any such thing, but Bosco's work here made me reconsider that self-imposed ban. It's incredible, harrowing, precise stuff.

88
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The Tony-winning Bosco, one of the great stage actors of the last 50 years, does a lot with a little in his restricted role; he's haughty, almost dignified by his angry silence. Linney and Hoffman stay pitch-perfect in their noisy desperation and sullen withdrawal.

88
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
Darkly hilarious.

83
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
The frequent outbursts of comedy help alleviate a tone that's appropriately muted and sad, and Jenkins should be credited for refusing to tack smiley-faces onto a tough, possibly lose-lose situation.

83
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Paula Nechak
A darkly funny journey about life ticking by and the change to make wrongs right.

80
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
I can't begin to count the ways in which The Savages pleased me, but the very best of them is the way Tamara Jenkins's comedy stays tough while sneakily turning tender.

80
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Disappointment, delusion, dementia, death--did I mention this is a comedy?

80
Film Threat
Jamie Tipps
The interaction between Hoffman and Linney makes following their characters from their winter of hard experience to a spring of renewed hope well worth the while.

80
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
The movie is dotted with moments of grace and whacked-out humor that got me on board for this damaged duo's liberation.

80
The New Yorker
David Denby
Vital, honest, and engaging.

80
Empire
Andrew Male
A richly nuanced American comedy, with two acting talents working at their absolute peak.

75
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
The Savages is funny in the if-you-didn't-laugh-you'd-cry way and superbly acted by all involved, including the supporting cast of home-care attendants, nurses, hospital administrators, intake personnel and nursing-home staff.

75
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
The Savages is a TV movie made for the big screen - and it needs the larger venue to accommodate the huge performances of its stars, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney.

75
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
These are fascinating, three-dimensional individuals brought into the foreground by a pair of today's finest actors.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
Suffused with clever lines, characters with neurotic tics and a pervasive, jocular black humour, The Savages is more about craft than art, but the craft, especially in the writing and acting, is at a high level.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
The right mix of humor and horror and with not even a shred of sentimentality.

75
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
As thin and jokey as this movie often is, I prefer it to the serioso treatment that usually encrusts this type of material. At its best, The Savages captures the lunacy that comes with coping with sorrow.

75
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
The film has a dreary, worn quality; much of it is set in winter in Buffalo, N.Y., after all. You know before long that the best you can hope for is that these folks won't kill each other or themselves.

75
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
The Savages is ultimately about two siblings, both around 40, in the midst of learning it's never too late to start embracing life, no matter how rotten a hand you were dealt in the past.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 44 User Votes
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