Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
12/31/11
There are few more potent
tools available to filmmakers at this moment in time than George Clooney’s
sadness. In movies like Up in the Air,
Michael Clayton and The
American, be it his hanging head, sad eyes, desperate smile, even his
plucky but philosophical voice in Fantastic
Mr. Fox: I am captivated by this guy’s despair. The latest
vehicle to put it to good use is The Descendants, director Alexander
Payne’s first movie since his Oscar-winning Sideways seven years
ago. It’s a family drama and character study with a lot of plot threads,
some of which work better than others. But when a heartbroken George
Clooney’s struggling to hold himself together at the center… yeah, and
some of his co-stars are pretty good too.
Honolulu-based attorney Matt
King (George Clooney) is the sole trustee of his family’s trust:
ancestors of the currently living Kings owned 25,000 acres of pristine
Hawaiian land, but since they and all their heirs are dead, the Rule of
Perpetuities is going to kick in seven years from now, forcing the family
to sell before they simply lose the land. Matt’s trying to decide
between two competing corporate interests while facing a more difficult
situation at home. His wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) suffered
a head injury in a boating accident and is now comatose. Her living
will is about to kick in and she will need to be disconnected from life
support. Elizabeth was always the primary parent, and Matt doesn’t
know how to deal with his daughters. Young Scottie (Amara Miller)
is getting into all kinds of trouble at school, and he brings home Alexandra
(Shailene Woodley) from college to spend some final time with her mother
and help him with all the sad notifications that must be delivered.
Where she goes, her quasi-boyfriend Sid (Nick Krause) goes as well, and
the kid with no filter at all is soon being punched in the face by Elizabeth’s
bitter father Scott (Robert Forster). But Alex’s anger at her parents
is not just the usual angst: she caught her mom cheating on her dad
and resents her for doing it and him for being a sucker. Matt is
caught flat-footed by the news, but is also mobilized because it gives
him something to focus on: he learns the name of the adulterer, Brian
Speer (Matthew Lillard) and sets about stalking him, taking the family
on a trip to Kaua’i, where they know he’s staying. Matt, Alex and
company circle Brian, his wife Julie (Judy Greer) and their children, and
then learn something that REALLY shakes things up: Brian is part
of the group with the favored bid for the 25,000 acres.
The Descendants is
one of those movies that’s not so much about any larger themes or life
issues and more about one specific group of characters, and it’s a group
of characters I found myself very engrossed by. Matt puts Clooney
in another of his patented states of enuii, but gives him two daughters
for whom he can’t simply crawl into a bottle. More than anything
else, The Descendants is about his attempts to keep going through
his wife’s last days, even as his image of her grows more and more disillusioned.
Because this is kind of a comedy, he’s got a little goofiness to his run,
a little extra franticness to his desperation, but it’s a performance bursting
at the seams with emotional truth, right down to when he finally breaks
down, asks his daughters to leave the room and rages at his comatose wife.
And I won’t spoil what he does and says when he finally has the courage
to approach Brian and Julie, but it’s both complex and satisfying.
I really liked the dynamic
between he, Alex and Sid. It would be easy to have his elder daughter
nag and make trouble throughout the movie, but it’s also interesting to
watch her put those issues aside when there are larger issues, and the
idea of confronting Brian is just as galvanizing for her as it is for Matt.
TV star Woodley (The Secret Life of the American Teenager) is very
good in the role and has nicely lived-in chemistry with Clooney.
But the character that really comes out of nowhere is Sid, so skillfully
played by Krause. At first, he seems like the dumbest guy in the
world, with a need to say the wrong thing at the wrong time that borders
on Tourette’s. But he’s got a secret of his own, and there’s an absolutely
wonderful scene where he explains to Matt how he can relate to his situation
and how he’s dealt with his own tragedies that is an utterly unique movie
moment.
It’s interesting to watch
Lillard, who was always crazy talented (seriously, you think it’s EASY
to do that good of an impression of a cartoon character?) but victimized
by his wiliness to play to the back row, start to take some more mature
roles and do good work in them. The scene where he and Matt finally
address the elephant in the room oozes tension. And Greer, a long-time
Palace favorite, is terrific as the clueless wife who’s not a fool as she
watches one thing after another not add up. Forster also has some
great moments: the scenes where Matt must decide whether to allow
Scott his delusions about his daughter or speak the truth also pack a great
deal of humble human suspense.
Luckily, I wasn’t all that
concerned or invested in the subplot about who ends up with the land, because
the resolution the movie decides upon is at best a cop-out. But I
did really like the Wes Anderson-like tone of the final scene, in which
the three surviving members of the King clan don’t speak a word, but tell
us with their body language was has changed and what remains to be worked
on.
The Descendants is
one of those Awards Season movies that lacks a lot of cross-over potential
to a wide audience because not a lot happens in it. But if you find
yourself drawn to movies where characters quietly struggle with big moments
in their lives, this is a very good one. After all, nobody quietly
struggles quite like George Clooney. |
