“My friends think that just because we live in Hawaii, we live in paradise. Like a permanent vacation, we're all just out here sipping Mai Tai's, shaking our hips and catching waves. Are they insane? Do they think we're immune to life? How can they possibly think our families are less screwed up? Our heartaches, less painful?”
The life of Matt King, a Hawaiian land baron played by George Clooney in The Desecendants, is certainly no paradise. His family is definitely screwed up and his heartache quite painful. Matt’s wife is in a coma, the result of a boating accident, and the clock is counting down to the removal of her life support. This leaves Matt alone to deal with his two rambunctious kids, Alex (Shailene Woodley) and Scottie (Amara Miller), and alone to grapple with the unexpected discovery that his wife had been cheating on him. As Matt takes his girls and Alex’s friend, Sid (Nick Krause), along to find his wife’s mysterious partner, Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard), to give him a chance to say goodbye before the end, Matt is also forced to continue his dealings to sell a huge tract of land on behalf of his large, extended family.
I am sometimes skeptical of naming George Clooney as one of the premiere actors of Hollywood because so many of his characters are so close to Clooney’s naturally charismatic personality. But Clooney is brilliant in this film and what makes him succeed so magnificently here is that he creates a character who is much more subdued and calm than charismatic and charming. Clooney’s Matt is not always on top of everything; he doesn’t always know the right thing to do and struggles to understand the other people in his life. He is an everyman in an extraordinary situation and Clooney gives real, albeit subtle, depth to a man trying to not only reconnect with his daughters, but also with the wife it seems he didn’t know and with the family identity he has forgotten.
Director Alexander Payne is a master at crafting stories about real people with real problems (like his last film, Sideways) and somehow manages to connect us with a member of Honolulu’s elite class. What is phenomenal is how intimately Payne brings us to understand each person in the movie; even side characters like Cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges), Matt’s father-in-law (Robert Forster), and Brian Speer’s wife (Judy Greer) are dynamic and interesting.
George Clooney is already considered a lock for a “Best Actor” nomination this year for The Descendants, and rightfully so. “Best Picture” and “Best Director” are likely possibilities as well. Some have suggested Shailene Woodley as a contender for “Best Supporting Actress,” but while she gives a great performance, I see Alex’s back-and-forth with Matt as more a part of the larger interaction between Alex, Scottie, and Sid, as a group, and Matt. So I think other actresses who give stronger, more independent performances as more likely bets. But if she gets it, great!
In the end, this film is all about taking responsibility for that with which you have been entrusted, even if those commitments have been forgotten for a time and recognizing that all of our decisions are connected, making each of them all the more important. Ultimately, The Descendants is a cinematic triumph, worthy of the Academy Award buzz and definitely worth seeing.
The Final Word: Go buy a ticket.
The life of Matt King, a Hawaiian land baron played by George Clooney in The Desecendants, is certainly no paradise. His family is definitely screwed up and his heartache quite painful. Matt’s wife is in a coma, the result of a boating accident, and the clock is counting down to the removal of her life support. This leaves Matt alone to deal with his two rambunctious kids, Alex (Shailene Woodley) and Scottie (Amara Miller), and alone to grapple with the unexpected discovery that his wife had been cheating on him. As Matt takes his girls and Alex’s friend, Sid (Nick Krause), along to find his wife’s mysterious partner, Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard), to give him a chance to say goodbye before the end, Matt is also forced to continue his dealings to sell a huge tract of land on behalf of his large, extended family.
I am sometimes skeptical of naming George Clooney as one of the premiere actors of Hollywood because so many of his characters are so close to Clooney’s naturally charismatic personality. But Clooney is brilliant in this film and what makes him succeed so magnificently here is that he creates a character who is much more subdued and calm than charismatic and charming. Clooney’s Matt is not always on top of everything; he doesn’t always know the right thing to do and struggles to understand the other people in his life. He is an everyman in an extraordinary situation and Clooney gives real, albeit subtle, depth to a man trying to not only reconnect with his daughters, but also with the wife it seems he didn’t know and with the family identity he has forgotten.
Director Alexander Payne is a master at crafting stories about real people with real problems (like his last film, Sideways) and somehow manages to connect us with a member of Honolulu’s elite class. What is phenomenal is how intimately Payne brings us to understand each person in the movie; even side characters like Cousin Hugh (Beau Bridges), Matt’s father-in-law (Robert Forster), and Brian Speer’s wife (Judy Greer) are dynamic and interesting.
George Clooney is already considered a lock for a “Best Actor” nomination this year for The Descendants, and rightfully so. “Best Picture” and “Best Director” are likely possibilities as well. Some have suggested Shailene Woodley as a contender for “Best Supporting Actress,” but while she gives a great performance, I see Alex’s back-and-forth with Matt as more a part of the larger interaction between Alex, Scottie, and Sid, as a group, and Matt. So I think other actresses who give stronger, more independent performances as more likely bets. But if she gets it, great!
In the end, this film is all about taking responsibility for that with which you have been entrusted, even if those commitments have been forgotten for a time and recognizing that all of our decisions are connected, making each of them all the more important. Ultimately, The Descendants is a cinematic triumph, worthy of the Academy Award buzz and definitely worth seeing.
The Final Word: Go buy a ticket.
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