Title: The Descendants
Director: Alexander Payne
Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, Jim Rash and Jim Taylor, based on the novel “The Descendants”, by Kaui Hart Hemmings
Country: USA
Year: 2011
Genre: Drama
Cast: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nick Krause, Beau Bridges and Robert Forster
Rated: PG-13
Running Time: 2 hrs.15 min.
By Igmar P. / Café Cinéfilo
The Summary. A family man, who lives in Hawaii and doesn’t get along too well with his two daughters, is suddenly overwhelmed by life itself, when he is forced to resolve his family issues at the same time he is supposed to make a crucial business decision, all the while he is dealing with the tragic situation of his wife, who is in a coma following a boating accident in “The Descendants”.
“The Descendants” is the most recent motion picture of filmmaker Alexander Payne, who also directed the comedy/drama films “About Schmidt” (2002) and “Sideways” (2004).
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| Movie poster of "The Descendants" |
Matt King (George Clooney) is a real estate lawyer who lives in Oahu, Hawaii, a city surrounded by paradise where he has his home, is married and is the father of a 17-year-old somewhat rebellious girl named Alexandra (Shailene Woodley), and also of a precocious 10-year-old named Scottie (Amara Miller).
Matt King lives a very satisfying life and prides himself of being very comfortable with what he has, even though his financial status would allow him and his family to have so much more. In one of the film’s best dialogues, when Matt is narrating his background, he explains that he avoids giving his girls everything they ask for so not to spoil them; instead he “gives them enough for them to do something, but not too much so they don't do nothing”.
But what Matt probably neglected in giving his daughters is sufficient parenthood and attention so as to be able to satisfyingly connect with them, when the family is suddenly thrust into a tragedy: His wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), who is the mother of both of Matt’s daughters, fell into a coma after she hit her head in a boating accident.
As weeks go by, the condition of Elizabeth does not improve, on the contrary, it worsens with the passing of each day. The medical prognosis is not good and the doctors assure Matt that pretty soon he will have to make the hard decision to disconnect her wife from the machines that are giving her artificial life. Such action will honor Elizabeth wish, made well before the accident, of not being held on life support if she ever were to fall in such state.
And if this weren’t trouble enough, the aforementioned tragedy appears in Matt’s life, just as he was about to make a crucial business decision, one that involves selling or not selling a vast extension of land that he, along with several of his cousins, own in one of the most beautiful parts of the island.
Although when it comes to the raising of his daughters, Matt considers himself to be the “back-up parent”, he decides to spend more time with them than at the office during the course of this difficult situation, with the hope of preparing them for the inevitable –and soon to occur- decease of their mother.
At the beginning Matt has some trouble getting Scottie to listen to him. Following the hospitalization of her mother, Scottie becomes disobedient and rude with her fellow classmates.
But then Matt finds more trouble reconnecting with Alex, when he learns that Alex and Elizabeth stopped talking to each other following a heated argument, which happened days before the accident.
Unbeknownst to Matt, the reason to why his wife and daughter argued so heatedly before, will be an unexpected revelation that will make even more difficult the situation of letting her wife die, and it will also change significantly the life of both Matt and his family.
The review
With “The Descendants”, once again Alexander Payne achieved a movie of immeasurable human value, with the same cinematic quality as that of “About Schmidt” and “Sideways”.
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| Book cover of "The Descendants" |
In “The Descendants”, Payne uses the paradisiacal background of Hawaii in a clever way, as the drama of the story unfolds with equal doses of laughs and tears. It is every bit as heartwarming as it is funny.
Part of the sad-funny duality of the film has to do with the way the characters live their lives on the island, which unavoidably “gets in the way” in situations that would otherwise, because of their seriousness, would be immensely melodramatic.
Take for example one of the best scenes of the movie, when Matt finds out about a painful secret of his wife, something she did before the accident and which happens to be the reason she and her daughter Alex argued.
When Matt learns about this secret, he immediately gets out of the house and starts running towards his friends’ house, a couple of blocks away on a downhill street.
Since at that precise moment Matt is wearing sandals (which is the footwear favored by most of the characters in the whole movie), he can barely run fast while the soles of his sandals make a loud and repetitive noise all the way.
Visibly angry and outraged, Matt runs in an awkward manner, with his sandals making a noisy scandal all the way down the street, an image that brings certain comedy to a very serious situation.
The cast is another one of the film’s most strong points. Everyone in this picture is excellent, most notably Shailene Woodley, who gives a remarkable performance. Woodley first shows us Alex as the typical rebellious young girl, who sneaks out of her dorm room at her expensive school to go out drinking with her friends.
But then Matt comes along with the sad news about her mother’s condition. She takes the news not so good and before she begins to cry, she submerges herself into the swimming pool at her house, where she bursts into tears that mix with the water that engulfs her.
Not long after that, Alex starts to be more supportive with her father. When Matt decides to take a trip to another island in Hawaii, Alex becomes a sort of “comrade in arms” to Matt, helping him in his quest to let friends and relatives know of Elizabeth’s condition so that they may have a chance to say goodbye to her.
And then of course, there is George Clooney, who once again brings a memorable performance to the big screen. Clooney gives us in his portrayal of Matt King his most human character yet, a middle-aged father with a good heart as well as flaws; a man who can make a surprising business decision that takes his cousins off-guard, but a parent who also doesn’t know what to do when his 10-year-old daughter Scottie, reveals to him and Alex while watching TV together, that her friend likes to watch porn movies when her parents are not at home.
The human element in this film, Payne’s excellent direction and strong performances by a superbly chosen cast make “The Descendants” one of the best movies of 2011.
Rating: * * * *
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