Children of a Lesser Dad

Interview: Talking with Tamara Jenkins.

by Sam Adams

The Savages deals with issues of life and death, aging and maturity, and the lingering fallout of an abusive childhood, but some of its best moments occur on a microscopic scale. A clumsy grasp for the handle of a suitcase hints at a world of anger and regret; a guilty grab for a dead woman's Percocet reveals a mix of cunning and childishness.

The movie's well-educated protagonists trade verbal jousts like Edward Albee characters. But their intellectual dexterity fails them when their dying father, whom neither has seen in 20 years, is thrust into their care. His dementia and impending death is something they cannot talk their way around.

"They're rarefied and incredibly bright and astute, but that doesn't matter, because it does not prepare them for the emotional demands of life," says Philly-born writer-director Tamara Jenkins.

Jenkins put both siblings in the world of theater because she liked the idea that they could share a certain language and reference points (at a key moment, Wendy pulls a copy of The Theatre and Its Double from her brother's couch). But she also links their professions to the fact that both are nearing or in their 40s, both single, and both still struggling to define themselves."

"They are living in this kind of eternal post-graduate stupor where they're not really embracing adulthood in a certain way." If they worked in an office, she says, they might notice their co-workers getting married and having children, and feel pressed to follow suit. But their bohemian surroundings allow them to drift. "It's a kind of world where you can sort of doggy-paddle for a long time before you realize, 'Wait a minute, I'm old,'" she says. Jenkins herself is 45 and married writer Jim Taylor in 2002.

The movie's style, Jenkins says, is primarily observational, allowing the audience to find their own meanings rather than force meaning upon them. "The camera's not telling you everything, and the music's not telling you everything. You're finding your own way," she says. "The film is sort of this laboratory of behavior."

As a young filmmaker and playwright, Jenkins says she was much more exacting and high-maintenance, but she has learned to allow more room for experimentation and allow the actors to play with the material (which seems like an awfully wise decision given her stellar cast). Little moments seem to be what she loves best. "When you're cutting a movie, there are ways of squeezing that stuff out, but that's what I'm most attracted to," she says. She adds, incredulously, "Some people get rid of that stuff."

(s_adams@citypaper.net)