Movie Review: The Descendants

Let's be honest: dealing with/talking about the loss of a loved one often means either experiencing immensely difficult pain or sounding cloyingly sentimental.

But Alexander Payne's The Descendants somehow manages to avoid both. Instead, it approaches the pain of loss head-on while capturing the hilarity of life's realities in a way that makes you chuckle (and so relieves the pain).

It wouldn't work if the characters weren't so well-acted or the Hawaiian scenery any less beautiful. But as it is, it's a delight.

As the inheritor of a wealthy family's trust fund (in the form of Hawaiian property, stunningly gorgeous, inherited by a family descended of a real estate trader and a Hawaiian princess), Matt King (played by George Clooney) is faced with some tough leadership decisions, while the family considers selling their last tract of property to be sold to a business wanting to build a mega resort. King is the one making the final decision because he's one of the more responsible in the family (fiscally-speaking), a real estate lawyer, and the primary beneficiary for the account.

On top of that responsibility, and (did I mention?) having to deal with his wife's impending death, Clooney's character has to figure out fast how to raise his two daughters. Until now, his wife's done most of the work, while he's been off working, being responsible, saving money. The one daughter (Scottie, played by Amara Miller) is a 10-year-old and an unwitting bully, who swears like a sailor. The other, the older one (Alex, played by Shailene Woodley), is apparently rehabbing from a small drug addiction and when her father comes to fetch her at a boarding school on another island, she's totally trashed.

Then, to top it all off, Matt learns his wife Elizabeth (played by Patricia Hastie), before being tossed off a little raft tied behind a motor boat and made comatose, was having an affair. Her friends knew, and her eldest daughter knew, but her husband didn't. because he was too disconnected. working as a real estate lawyer.

As I said, The Descendants' story was for me painful and exceedingly depressing. But because of the way the filmmakers chose to tell the story, I still found the film both hilarious and deeply moving.

When Matt hears from his daughter that his wife's been cheating on him, for instance, he gets all in a huffed-up, semi-controlled rage, throws on flip-flops, orders Alex to watch her sister, and then run / stumbles down the street, around the corner, through sunny glades of Hawaiian suburbia, and into the home of his semi-neighborly friends to — once he's caught his breath — demand they tell him the name of the man his wife's been cheating with. They at first refuse, and Matt is near helpless to get it out of them. You feel sorry for him. but you respect that he wants to keep things civil. And that he's shocked: He doesn't know what he should do.

Article Author: MediaRunner

Jeffrey Coleman is new to the 21st century, but he likes new things so it's okay. He's traveled to 10+ countries, has an M.A. in historical theology, and now loves music and film. He also loves photography.

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