Tamara Jenkins, the writer and director of the just-released film The Savages, was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air this week. As in her 1998 film Slums of Beverly Hills, Jenkins is concerned with the forces – both beneficial and detrimental – that bind families together. It's a worthy topic at this time of year, as we hurtle from Thanksgiving toward the December holidays. 

Jenkins based the narratives of both films on incidents from her own life, altering events to suit the story. She said, "I've been differentiating from (The Savages) being strictly autobiographical vs. it being really personal, 'cause if I said it was autobiographical I'd end up like that guy James Frey (author of "A Million Little Pieces").

Slums of Beverly Hills is the story of a teenage girl whose father moves her and her two brothers around the wealthy zip code, always one step ahead of eviction, so the kids can attend good public schools. They are an unusual bunch, and Jenkins takes care to preserve their quirks without resorting to revelations of "hearts of gold" or other mainstream clichés. 

She does this in The Savages as well, which is about siblings (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney) who place their elderly father in a nursing home as his dementia worsens. 

About casting the part of the father, Jenkins recalled, "It was very important to me that he wasn't trivialized...as a bastard with a twinkle in his eye. I just didn't want that cute-ification that I think often occurs with difficult old men...I wanted it to be very honest and blunt."

The characters in both films find humor in difficult situations, as human beings are wont to do. Jenkins explains why this is so: "The world separates comedies from tragedies, dramas from farces.  I actually think if you are paying close attention in life that you'll see that they are actually operating in stereo most of the time...under tragedy is a kind of human farce happening, also."