Courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Laura Linney (“The Squid and the Whale,” “Mystic River,” “Kinsey”) is nominated for her third Oscar this year for her outstanding performance as Wendy Savage in Tamar Jenkins’s new coming of age movie “The Savages.”

Linney shines in the role as a neurotic, lost, and confused person with a false sense of ambition. She has to compete on screen with Phillip Seymour Hoffman (“Capote,” “Almost Famous,” “Magnolia,” “Punch-Drunk Love”) who is a masterful actor and one who steals the screen in any number of films. Linney holds her own on the screen with Hoffman, however, and at times outshines the more widely-recognized actor.

Jenkins’s film revolves around Linney’s character, Wendy Savage, and her meaningless life where she has a nightly fling with a married neighbor. She takes up temporary jobs and constructs grants for the plays she hopes to write. Her ambition outweighs her reality. She is middle-aged and confused about her path in life. She even applies to receive money from FEMA after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York because of the stress it had caused her.

The movie is about the father of Jon (Hoffman) and Wendy, Lenny Savage played by Phillip Bosco (“Deconstructing Harry,” “Hitch”), who suffers from dementia. Lenny’s girlfriend and sugar momma’ dies, leaving him without a home or money. Lenny is the father who forgot his children and whose children forget and leave him behind. Jon and Wendy are then forced to take care of him despite having not seen or heard from him in many years

Wendy and Jon travel to Arizona to pick up their father who is suffering immensely with his dementia and unable to communicate. Bosco is a strong figure on the screen. He continually shows his age and mental condition with great accuracy and strength.

Lenny’s children constantly bicker about what to do about their father, deciding whether to place him in an eldery home or an assisted-living complex. Both Jon and Wendy seem to agree that it is out of the question that their own father lives with either one of them.

Jon Savage wants to put his father into the elderly home and arranges for one by his house in Buffalo where he teaches college drama classes. Jon is the successful child, researching the complex nature of Brecht’s plays. His girlfriend is a Polish immigrant whose green card has expired. Jon loves her but refuses to marry her, despite her pending deportation. Jon is a physical and mental wreck who tries to receive just as many grants as his sister but fails equally as miserably as she does. He is a bomb waiting to explode on the screen and often fulfills this prophecy.

The movie revolves around the brother and sister pair as they deal with the regrets they have about their father and their own lives. Each is seeking a new path. While Wendy is struggling to define love and find her way, she scrapes food and money together from the temp jobs she works.

The void left by her father wares away at her as she repeatedly tries to understand why he has to live in a hospital-like building with a roommate and a curtain providing privacy. She feels the immense guilt of the placement of her father bearing down. She receives her first and only condolence from a worker in the elderly-home, her father’s caregiver, Jimmy (played by Gbenga Akinnagbe), who encourages her to continue with her play-writing career.

The movie is a slow-paced drama with a humorous touch. Chuckles are the result of the absurd nature of the characters to a viewer, when in fact they deal with everyday problems and are any number of people in society. Wendy stretches and follows an exercise workout by tape in front of the TV, while Jon continually delays his work on Brecht. Both strive to be bigger and happier but are continually brought down by one another and themselves. They both explode and implode more than once on their peers and their each other, usually in front of their father, who sits and listens to them talk about him and what to do with him. Their father sits nearby listening to the grievances and mistakes each child has made.

Jenkins script is heartfelt, but her directing sometimes feels disconnected. Some scenes need to be drawn out more while others need to be cut or shortened. At times, the emotion is lost or never there at all. The acting is superb, however, and Linney may finally get her due for her deserved Oscar after being nominated twice previously.

Kevin Koczwara can be reached at [email protected].