I just came across the best movie on HBO, "The Savages" starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's about Lenny Savage, an old man who's been living with his rich senile girlfriend in a retirement community called "Sun City" for 20 years.

Lenny develops dementia, refusing to flush a toilet--when his girlfriend's caretaker gets on to him about it, Lenny smears feces on the wall. When his elderly girlfriend dies suddenly, Lenny's son and daughter (who haven't seen him in years) have to find a nursing home for the irascible old man.
When Linney asks her brother what kind of place it was, Hoffman says "They take Medicaid, it's a nursing home, it smells, they all smell, they'll take him."

This story is as true to life as a documentary; the dementia and effect on the adult children is not prettied up, gussied up; the dialog is so natural, so real--yet it's funny and poignant.
When Linney worries that the nursing home isn't good enough, her brother reminds her "We're doing the right thing--we're taking better care of the old man than he ever did us." They visit a more upscale nursing home where the activities director is giving a lecture on "Activities you can share with your confused elderly."

While waiting for Lenny to be interviewed before he can enter this upscale nursing home, the daughter hoping to quell her father's confusion, gives him a gingko biloba pill--then she offers one to her brother, and they both take one too.
In one scene, they take the old man out to a diner and have some papers to fill out as ordered by the nursing home director about end of life decisions. Question from son: "Dad, what do you-um ah-want done if--you know--you stop breathing?" The old man hollers "What?" Son: "You know, do you want to be put on a machine?" Father "NO!" Then he stands up and hollers, alarming other diners, "Plug the plug! Pull the plug!"

Next comes a question about funeral home arrangements. Son: "Um, what do you want done after you--um--ah--die?" The old man hollers "Done? Well, bury me you damn fool!"


Enjoyed this movie--especially, being a nurse, I can tell you it was the real thing. susil