It’s not easy to communicate genuine warmth beneath the surface of pitch-black comedy, but Tamara Jenkins does it with style and wit. It’s also not easy to tell a story about maturation and redemption without becoming sappy and sentimental, but she pulls that off, too. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that she’s working with two of today’s finest actors in Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the latter of whom deserves some kind of special award for being both darkly funny and deeply touching while in traction and while crying over a plate of eggs. (Awards Screener DVD)