The Savages (2007)

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are perfectly cast as self-absorbed siblings suddenly tasked with caring for their dying father in the 2007 drama "The Savages."

Written and directed by Tamara Jenkins, this independent film is a rare gem, pulling laughter and tears in the same scene, with its pitch dark humor. And it pulls no punches as it depicts the bitter squabbles and jealousies that divide grown siblings, especially those dealt raw deals by their parents.

Wendy (Linney) is a freelance writer living in New York, bonking a married middle-aged dope. She pops any pill she can get her hands on, and will lie about anything, including a cancer scare. Meanwhile, John (Hoffman) is a college professor who looks like he hasn't seen a bar of soap, a razor or a barber in a decade. He lives in a house covered in research papers and books, and is standing idly by as his Polish girlfriend is deported. She longs to be a playwright; he longs to write a book on Breck. In short, they need to grown up. (The John and Wendy of "Peter Pan" analogy is not subtle).

Tasked with decisions regarding nursing home care, death by right and funeral arrangements for their long-estranged monster-father (Philip Bosco), the two fight, bicker and slowly get to know each other. But the whole way, it's obvious they love each other. Bosco's character is the heart of the film -- an apparently abused child grown to an abused father, and now an old man stunned at his brutal acts, the decay of his mind and how his children turned out. Bosco doesn't have much dialogue, but his character, through the murk of dementia and Parkinson's, watches carefully. As John and Wendy explode in a fight during a car ride, the father turns his hearing aid off, pulls his parka hood over his head and tries to hide from the two messes he's created. It's a magical scene that's brutally sad and touching.

The chunks of dark comedy are not outright funny, but stem from painfully embarrassing moments -- eating from a public desert tray before it's officially served, or being stupid enough to show the racist 1927 film "The Jazz Singer" to a public audience. There's rarely a note in this film that feels false. Linney and Hoffman work so well together, you buy wholesale their heritage. Flawlessly acted and scripted, brutal, funny, sad and in the end uplifting, Jenkins' film runs circles around the hip but clueless "Juno," which inexplicably won the 2007 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. A-