The Descendants Review

There are no rules to the game of life; it’s messy and unpredictable in its dispersion of positive and negative. The universe is random but it’s beautiful in its highly structured chaos, much like the film The Descendants. Alexander Payne is just the man to handle such disgruntling themes, he and his co-writer’s Nat Faxon and Community’s Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) fill every second of the two hour running time with palpable heart-ache and eventual gratification. Much like Payne did before with Sideways and About Schmidt, he finely crafts another inspired yarn about the dark comedy of a regular guy being torn apart figuratively by his current situation in life.

*Spoilers Throughout*

Matt King (Clooney) is a Honolulu lawyer involved in real estate. He’s traditional in the way he handles his money, business and family, opting to be more conservative than risk taking. He and his amusingly large extended family are the descendants of the first white land-owning family in Hawaii, the rights to a 25,000-acre plot of land now under King’s sole ownership. His family wants him to sell the land to developers in exchange for a major payday, his cousin Hughie (Bridges) the greedy, but endearing front-runner of this idea.

King’s wife, Elizabeth (Hasite), is a thrill seeker and the parent relegated to raising their two daughters, Scottie and Alexandra. Scottie (Miller) is ten and impressionable, her supporting family helping her come full circle maturity wise by the film’s end. Alexandra, brought to life with an Oscar worthy performance by Shailene Woodley, is the trouble child, sent away to reside at a boarding school because of her distracting affinity for drugs and older boys. Soon after, Elizabeth is knocked into a violent coma after a tragic boating accident, causing the family to rebuild and redefine their roles amongst each other.

Most movies give us a story and characters and we follow them from point A to point B, being privy to some manufactured dramatic moments to make it all seem worthwhile. The Descendants puts the latter cinematic tropes to shame, engulfing us in cinematographer Phedon Papamichael’s consuming vision of Hawaii, where we’re introduced to our very human protagonist, Matt King. King starts by saying that just because he lives in paradise, his own life, and the lives of those on the island don’t necessarily reflect the serenity of their surroundings. We learn shortly after that nothing could be truer.

With his wife in a coma she had previously written in her will to be pulled off of life support from, King, as the back up parent, has to transition fully into a single parent, all the while juggling his business prerogatives. He’s afraid for both his daughter’s well being, one of his daughters too young to take care of herself and the other too self-destructive to tame. Unlike most films, which make you loathe the younger characters, this film distinguishes a fine sense of comradery between the youths and the adults, displaying a team-oriented mentality focused on healing and not cynicism.

With his daughter Alexandra back at home now and fully aware of her mother’s impending demise, she reveals the devastating secret that her mother had been having an affair, a painful burden the parent and child use to bond and resolve previous disorder in their relationship. From there, King is on the hunt for the man whom his wife had confessed her love to, a series of events which act as an excuse at first to send our amiably damaged characters on a quest for closure, but that soon ends up making things even more complicated than they were before.

When Matt and Alexandra finally confront the ever-illusive Brian Speer, played remarkably by Mathew Lillard, we’re treated to another display of Alexander Payne’s fine craftsmanship of human drama, expertly executing a balancing act of emotional turmoil subtly and responsibly. The entire film shows such fine craftsmanship in it’s pacing and direction that it’s hard to have any qualms or complaints unless you’re the token contrarian who can’t fully let themselves be swept up as another member of this family.

We learn that Speer is not only involved in King’s love life, but as the primary beneficiary of the land King would sell, being that Speer’s brother is the developer buying said land. Now King has to decide whether to sell the land to satiate his extended families greed while putting money indirectly into the pocket of the man who had been sleeping with his wife, or stick with his gut and appease the people of Hawaii by not tarnishing their home with further capitalistic exploits.

Another character I haven’t mentioned as of yet, Sid, played by Nick Krause, started as my least favorite character with his naïve and unfortunately timed remarks and soon developed into an enriching and sympathetic piece of the puzzle. A poignant scene between him and King delves into the young stoners unsettling and lonely childhood, his mother being strapped for cash and his father having died recently in a drunken car crash. It’s the sincerity with which Payne and his writers have added such subtle nuances to his characters that makes what other wise seems on the surface to be a sentimental popcorn flick that much more alive.

Clooney has always been an intelligent man, both politically savvy and dignified in his selection of work. Here he steps down a notch, opting to play a regular joe, but his performance, in my opinion, is one of his best to date. He brings a raw frustration and bewilderment to the role of Matt King, all of us in shock as he truthfully tears down figurative walls and barricades around subjects other feel to afraid to engage.

I can’t rave enough about this film. The performances were spot on and refreshing in their honesty, the direction was subtle but deeply moving, the cinematography engulfing and the writing, brilliant. There’s no reason not to see this Oscar contender except for your own negligence. Shame on those who turn up their noses at this masterpiece, you’re the ones who are missing out.