Quick take: The Savages

Sometimes I wonder why movies like The Savages get made. The widest it was ever released in the U.S. was 201 theaters at a time. It only made $10.6 million in box office worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo. Here are some possible reasons why: It's frequently funny, but not enough to be marketed as a comedy. It's a drama where people grapple with relationships, but it's not a relationship drama. It's about aging and death but isn't a poignant weeper featuring a "brave" career-capping performance by a legendary actor.

Yet those are also all reasons I loved this movie. It has an honesty and a realism about adult life today that's rare in the movies. The settings and character types, on the surface, are exaggerated and contrasted to maximum effect. This is most true in the first part of the film, in which two East Coast intellectuals go to a stunningly shot Sun City, Arizona, to get their father's affairs in order. But as the film progresses, the details of the characters' lives add up to much more than caricature or cliche. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman are excellent, of course, but the cast is fine all around.

The Savages is a "small movie" and may not leave you with a single impression that lasts a long time, because it isn't a Big Message movie. Its truth is that life isn't made up of Big Messages that are revealed in Big Moments. That reminder is reason enough for movies like this.