On its surface, “The Savages” is a film about dying parents and nursing homes — a dark subject that may repel audiences from this gem, which is less interested in the prospect of death than in examining the possibilities of life. Director Tamara Jenkins has been absent from theaters for too long since her 1998 comedy “The Slums of Beverly Hills,” which riffed on the hopelessness of the Hollywood crowd and the persistence of one neurotic family. In “The Savages,” Ms. Jenkins seems equally intrigued by the underbelly of worlds that appear ideal on the surface.

The first of these worlds to go under the microscope is the darkened corners of seasonal Arizona senior communities. “The Savages” opens with a credit sequence that marvels at the imported palms, the speeding golf carts, and the cookie-cutter homes. Within one such dwelling we find Lenny (Philip Bosco), who is slipping into dementia and is found one morning in the bathroom, smearing excrement on the wall.

Thousands of miles away in Manhattan and Buffalo, Lenny’s children, an aspiring playwright named Wendy (Laura Linney) and a floundering theater professor named Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman), respond to the news with varying shades of concern and annoyance. They are poster children for those struggling to become part of the liberal elite. Both are well-educated and floundering artists, and have allowed the entropy of modern life to fill in the gaps of their broken hearts and dreams. As Wendy and Jon hit the pause button and set about trying to care for their ailing father, the desperation of their less-than-glamorous lives begins to emerge. Terse and methodical, Jon views the mission with an air of detachment: Get dad on a plane and find a nursing home, preferably an affordable one, that they can check him into before getting back to life as usual. But as he lands in Arizona, we sense the insecurities brimming beneath his skin. Jon is scruffy and poorly dressed, always talking about a book in progress, and he’s hesitant to bring up his long-term girlfriend. But when Wendy presses him, details emerge: He’s in love with a woman whose visa is expiring, yet he refuses to marry her; and even though he talks persistently about a biography of Bertolt Brecht, the project appears to be painfully out of reach.

Jon’s frustration in proving himself and his ability to rationalize his shortcomings is matched only by Wendy. She’s desperate to be a playwright, but for now she’s a temp — but at least she can steal office supplies and print applications for grants and fellowships. She tries her best to believe she’s on the verge on something big, in both her career and her love life, but just as one job blurs into another, her nightly flings with her married neighbor seem stuck on repeat.

It’s the emergency airplane trip to Arizona that dislodges the siblings from their numbing routine, sparking in them a surge of conflicted emotions — anger at an abusive father, yet lingering affection for the parent they now feel compelled to care for — that neither is capable of processing. In a superficial era, when text messages have replaced genuine communication and sex has supplanted intimacy, here we have two adults, educated and supposedly enlightened, incapable of reaching out to each other.

Though the story has its specifics, it’s nonetheless surprising that more movies have not tackled a subject as universal as this one. Then again, few actors are capable of portraying such subtle emotional growth with the skill of Ms. Linney and Mr. Hoffman.

It’s Wendy who is most committed to easing her father’s pain, taking him by the arm on the airplane and working hard to spruce up his nursing home room. Ms. Linney plays her as a woman so terrified of looking over that emotional precipice of death that she overcompensates, believing she can somehow help him beat the odds. Jon, meanwhile, is scarred by the abuses of the past and frightened of absorbing any more pain. Mr. Hoffman — who, with “The Savages,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” and the forthcoming “Charlie Wilson’s War,” will have three Oscar-worthy performances on his résumé this year — plays Jon as little more than a businessman, negotiating things for his dad as a business analyst would negotiate shipping rates for a product.

It isn’t until Jon suffers a tennis injury and is rendered immobile that he and his sister finally examine where their lives are, and how they pale in comparison with what they once imagined. There’s a sense throughout “The Savages” that we have lost our connection to family, that we have become a culture of disconnected, dispassionate vehicles yearning for contact. Yet Ms. Jenkins seems to believe that there are still moments in our lives, such as coming to the aid of a dying parent, a heartbroken brother, an aimless sister, which splinter our modern notion of invincibility. Somewhere inside, Jon and Wendy love each other. They love their father. And for a few short weeks, in less-than-glamorous Buffalo, they allow themselves to lower their guard, open their hearts, and experience life again.

ssnyder@nysun.com