Cast Laura Linney
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Bosco
Gbenga Akinnagbe
Screenwriter
Tamara Jenkins
Director
Tamara Jenkins
Running Time
114 minutes
As their estranged father Lenny (Bosco) sinks into senility in an Arizona retirement village, Wendy (Linney) and Jon (Hoffman) Savage are forced to figure out how to care for the dad who never cared for them.
First, the projection of the film was 15 minutes late in starting and then was too dark for a large section. A scene which I saw in the trailer, set in a well lit room, was in semi darkness. I don't know enough about film projection to say how that happens but it did. Anyway on with the review, the film starts well but doesn't really go anywhere. I've seen reviews which say the trailer gives a false impression of the tone of the movie making it seem like more of a blackly comic drama than it really is and I would agree. The film actually reminds me a lot of Nanni Moretti's The Son's Room in that it's quite minimalistic and if you have no personal experience of the subject matter to be able to fill in the gaps the emotional intensity is missing. There's just a lack of dialogue but lots of hand held shots of building tops, tree tops and cacti tops. Also making the children a professor and a playwright just seems unnecessary, keeping the average viewer from identifying closely with them.
