For "The Savages," Many Restrictions Apply

Hot Ticket: Tamara Jenkins's film "The Savages" opened the Asheville, N.C., Film Festival

The fifth annual Asheville Film festival kicked off last night with The Savages, the eagerly anticipated film directed by Tamara Jenkins and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney. In contrast with typical standards of Southern hospitality, the film's producers made festival goers run a gauntlet at the screening at the Diana Wortham Theatre. Pinkerton guards armed with electronic-sniffing wands searched every attendee: Absolutely no cameras or cell phones with photo-taking ability were to be allowed. (No food or beverages were served either: a disappointment, since most North Carolinian movie refreshment stands sell beer along with popcorn.)

Paranoia about finding $5 bootleg copies of The Savages on Chinatown's sidewalks may have been a good call, since the film, which tackles the often messy topic of caring for aging parents, feels like a breakout hit in the making. Its signature irreverence certainly resonates beyond the obvious audience for it—baby boomers, that is. Murmurs of "that really hit home for us" were overheard between after-party sips of Merlot and Bud Light.

Alas, with foliage season drawing to a close, Asheville is not a stop that the indiewood élite choose to make, even if the Writer's Guild has provided folks across the industry with a little down time. So there was no post-credits Q&A with either Jenkins or the film's stars. Even Asheville resident Andie MacDowell, star of Sex, Lies, and Videotape and the honorary chair of the film festival, was missing. Rumor had it that she too was taking care of an ill parent.

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