Estrange Times

"Dad is losing his mind, or something..." begins the trailer for "The Savages," a movie described in Terry Gross's interview with writer/director Tamara Jenkins as children estranged from each other coming together to take care of the father from whom they are also estranged.

And, like many dad-kid relationships, it's a dark comedy. Jenkins wrote it out of her own experience with a father who lost his mental facilities as his life ended. Still, "out of the blackness of dementia he would say something and just slay you," she says.

The movie's dramatic tension comes from the search for "closure," a search filled with tension and made necessary by the dysfunction during earlier years of their "opensure," which, of course, is the source of the comedy. Real life lesson: If kids are surprised at the end of a dad's life then they haven't been listening. For even if a dad isn't talking, he's still communicating — although probably not so well.

** Thing 1 and Thing 2 can't wait until they become the parent and I the child ... but they have no idea what they're in for. **