The Savages (Grade: B+)

Like Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale, Tamara Jenkins' The Savages is an exceptionally well-written dysfunctional family comedy that is alternately hilarious and devastating. While Baumbach showed a little mercy by keeping his film well under the 90-minute mark, Jenkins goes for the jugular for two full hours. If her intention is to make us feel like we're trapped without oxygen in this family trainwreck, then she has certainly succeeded. Still there's no getting around the problem that the quality of the dialogue and the storytelling drops considerably in the final stretch, leaving me convinced that Jenkins really could have hit this mother out of the park if she had spent a little more time in the cutting room.

Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman do what they do best (that is, masterfully portray the most neurotic and annoying people on earth) as a pair of estranged siblings who reunite when their father (Philip Bosco) rapidly succombs to dementia. The catch is that Daddy is a violent guy who used to abuse his kids, causing his considerably maladjusted offspring to wrestle with extremely mixed emotions, especially in regard to their caretaking obligations.

All the acting is top-notch, and the unflinching attention to the day-to-day realities of old age and senility give the film a honest feel that's hard to come by these days, even in indie films. For over an hour I was convinced that The Savages would easily emerge as one of the year's best films. It remains an impressive and refreshing effort, but sadly the almost unbearably redundant final stretch knocks it off the 2007 all-star team.