You know it’s good when it’s in the running for five Oscars including the coveted Best Film, Best Director, and Best Actor gongs.
On paper, it sounds like afternoon telly melodrama — a man reconnects with daughters after a horror boating accident leaves his wife in a coma.
However, like all of Alexander Payne’s films — from Election to About Schmidt and especially Sideways — this story of a middle-aged man struggling with a life crisis is something special. This is thanks, in the main, to the actors — with Clooney offering one of his best performances to date backed by uniformly strong and compelling turns from the supporting cast.
The script, adapted by Payne from the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, makes life easy for them — it’s really good. Every line rings true and there’s a sense of realism throughout. It’s refreshing to see Clooney play this kind of role. He’s Matt King, husband and father of two girls, a lawyer who happens to also be the wealthy descendant of Hawaiian royalty and white landowners.
Along with several of his cousins he’s weighing up offers to buy the rolling acres of land they own on the beautiful island of Kauai. But when his wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) falls into a coma after a boating accident off Waikiki, Matt is thrust into crisis, well several crises.
As well as reeling from the news that Elizabeth will never recover, he’s confronting the fact he wasn’t exactly the most attentive husband. He’s also struggling with 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller) and rebellious boarding school teen Alexandra (Shailene Woodley).
Then there’s Alexandra’s shocking revelation about his wife, something that throws him entirely and prompts an island-hopping family trip to confront the issue. Some scenes are very moving — Matt telling friends and family Elizabeth is dying and Elizabeth’s father’s tender “goodbye” to his daughter are particularly tear-inducing.
However, there are dashes of comedy, mostly thanks to Alexandra’s stoner pal Sid (Nick Krause). Moving, tender, sweet, funny, and real,
The Descendants is one to catch, but don’t forget the Kleenex.