The film’s title may mislead you. At first hearing, it sounds like a movie about primitive wild men living in the jungle and preying on others.

But “The Savages” has no obvious violence. Rather, it takes its name from the family portrayed: Lenny Savage, the father; Jon, his son; and Wendy, his daughter. These roles are taken by actors who rank among the finest ─ Philip Bosco, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Laura Linney.

This film rates for me as the most satisfying overall that I have seen in a long time. More specifically, I admire its portrayal of a crisis faced by a huge number of American families, either right now or in the future.

Most of us are familiar with this situation: a person advanced in years becomes seriously ill or disabled and needs long-term care. Into this crisis, almost inevitably, are drawn the adult children.

In this instance, Jon and Wendy have been more or less estranged from their father for many years. They are far removed from him, both emotionally and geographically. But that all changes when Jon receives a telephone call in the night informing him that his father needs help.

The film provides a realistic and sensitive look at what happens to the father. We see something of his bewilderment as he moves from the home he was sharing with a woman friend in Sun City, Arizona, to a Buffalo, New York nursing home.

But the film centers on the effect of their father’s crisis on Jon and Wendy. They have not been in close contact before their father’s illness; getting suddenly thrown together proves challenging, to say the least.

Both are shown to have human defects that diminish their lives. Jon has been living with a Polish woman but lacks commitment to her. She is forced to return home when her visa expires.

Wendy, for her part, feels qualms about her sexual relationship with a married man back in New York City. She also feels unfulfilled by her failure to achieve much success in her career as a playwright.

Negative feelings around these issues in the lives of brother and sister are intensified by the stress they are experiencing because of their father’s situation. The stress leads to angry exchanges between them, often punctuated by profanity.

What fascinated this filmgoer was the difference between the two characters and us in the audience. They were unable to identify the stress clearly enough to let them deal with it. We recognized it and felt a mixture of sympathy, exasperation, and gentle superiority.

Especially memorable is the scene featuring Wendy and Jon seated on one side of a restaurant booth and their father on the other. Len, the father, is in the early stages of dementia. Wendy, awkward and embarrassed, tries to ask Len his wishes about end-of-life care and disposal of his body. Jon does no better.

Finally, the father becomes exasperated with them and yells out his answers so that everyone in the restaurant can hear.

In the role of reviewer, I cannot reveal to you any more of the story. That might spoil your pleasure in watching the plot unfold. But I hope to have presented enough of it here to whet your appetite for seeing it for yourself.

I hope others will admire, as I did, the skill of the screenwriter and director (Tamara Jenkins is both), and leading actors in dramatizing without condescension the family drama that touches so many people in our country.

This film takes its place with a couple of others that have dealt with similar subject matter in recent years. Yes, despite the pitfalls of the subject, some filmmakers have managed to get the point about late-life issues and their effects on family members and others.

I recall the 2006 film “Away From Her” in which Julie Christie, in a return to movie making after a ten-year recess, portrays a woman with Alzheimer’s disease. She lives in a nursing home, cut off from her devoted husband.

And I remember “Iris,” the 2001 film in which Judi Dench plays the writer Iris Murdoch, afflicted by the same disease. Jim Broadbent takes the role of her husband, with a sensitivity matching Dench’s.

It may not be coincidental that women were so largely involved in making these films. The directors of both “The Savages” and “Away From Her” are female and, of course, so were the standout performers in those two movies and in “Iris.”

I feel fortunate for having access to such good films; they help me unravel better what the journey of life means. By throwing light upon the anguish of illness and death among my age peers, and the effects those unwelcome realities have on families, these films invite their viewers to appreciate the pathos of human existence in its times of crisis and its hard-won triumphs of love and insight.

Richard Griffin