"The Savages" **1/2 (out of four): Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney are typically superb as a brother and sister brought together to care for their aging father in Tamara Jenkins' acute, if sometimes sluggish, follow-up to "Slums of Beverly Hills".

“The Savages”, writer-director Tamara Jenkins’ long-awaited follow-up to 1998’s comic gem “Slums of Beverly Hills”, is the small, sluggish story of a brother and sister brought together to care for their aging father. As the siblings (whose last name is Savage), Ms. Jenkins scores the casting coup of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney – two of our finest most naturalistic actors. The two performers excel in what is otherwise a slight film about life, death and extreme self-obsession.

Read more on BigPictureBigSound...