The Savages
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Directed by Tamara Jenkins
Unfairly speaking, every generation has its signature style of film.
The 1970s: gritty, grimy, orange, and fascinated with the streets of New York City.
In the 1980s, characters cleaned up and moved out to Los Angeles. There were really loud synthesizer scores, and problems were worked out during montages set to your favorite ’80s pop songs. And it was good.
If we were to settle on a template for our generation, my vote has to go to stuff like The Savages. Beautiful, stiff, and clever stuff; peppered with obscure and delicate little folk songs; more sterile than a laboratory.
In this installment of melancholy indie movie, Jon and Wendy Savage are depressed intellectuals, who upon taking brief pauses from their lives, realize that their dad has become very old and senile. There are many vague hints that he was only a slightly better parent than their mother, and she abandoned them as small children.
Just in time, father Savage’s elderly girlfriend suddenly drops dead at the beauty salon.
The onus is now on his detached children to either take him in, or find the cheapest retirement home that their consciences will allow.
From the snappy trailer to the poster art by graphic novelist Chris Ware, The Savages was blatantly advertised as another quirky indie comedy about highly educated and emotionally damaged individuals — exactly what it turns out to be.
In one instance of coping with the darkness, Wendy (Laura Linney) is having passionless sex with her married boyfriend; while he makes love to her, she blankly stares around the room. Seeing that his dog happens to be lying next to them on the bed, she makes the creepy decision to reach out and hold his paw.
The emptiness. The despair. Are we nothing more than.animals?
When it comes to upper-class white angst, I will take Bill Murray mentally undressing Scarlett Johansson any day over having to see that again.
Charlie Wilson’s War
Universal Pictures
Directed by Mike Nichols
I never thought I’d say this, but maybe there aren’t enough political movies.
You gather up the stars, a good director and a dramatic real-life situation — and you pretty much have something by default. Think of the hundreds of already established characters there are to work with.
Charlie Wilson’s War tests this theory rigorously. It doesn’t have much of a beginning or an ending — it’s just a giant middle.
But not a bad middle. It successfully taps into the part of us that knows our government has been bought and paid for, but doesn’t totally believe it. Maybe it’s just very lazy and shambolic?
Or maybe the price tag is lower than we think.
According to the history presented here, Texas congressman Charlie Wilson (Tom Hanks) noticed a turban-capped Dan Rather reporting from Afghanistan, as the Soviets threatened to take over the country.
Along comes a wealthy Houston socialite (Julia Roberts), who lures him — with sex and money — into pushing the United States to seriously back the Afghan fighters. We don’t fully explore her motives, but are led to believe that she’s on a purely personal and religious mission.
On the other side, Hoffman plays an equally frustrated CIA agent ready to grease all the wheels.
The bittersweet ending is well-known: the Afghanis successfully fought off the Soviets, but it opened the door to leaders like Osama Bin Laden; in the end, the U.S. could not make the commitment to the region that it needed to. The honeymoon was extremely short, leaving the people of Afghanistan free, poor and in a pile of rubble.
Charlie Wilson’s War is only concerned with everything right up to the point where it goes wrong, so it is safe to be a dark comedy. The movie is funny and educational enough to look past the awful southern accents from Roberts and Hanks. The legendary bachelor congressman is portrayed as smart, adventurous and always fairly drunk.
It’s funny how comforting that can be, considering the alternatives.
The Winner.
Charlie Wilson by a long shot. It is incomplete, but seeing as it’s based on what must be a very interesting book — at least it doesn’t ruin it for you. Now let’s just sit back and wait for Oliver Stone’s George W. Bush movie.