With his last four features (of five total), Alexander Payne
has become our foremost cinematic chronicler of the adult white male self-examination
crisis. However, perhaps because he has adapted a series of novels, he hasn’t
repeated himself. Those who found Paul Giamatti’s wine snob in Sideways too ornery or found About Schmidt too slow may still like
watching lawyer Matt King (George Clooney), imperfect husband and father,
muddle through his own difficult time. King’s crisis comes when his wife lapses
into a coma following a water-skiing accident. Payne’s faithful adaptation of a
novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings isn’t as plot-driven or pithy as 1999’s Election, but it’s his most mainstream
film since then, and in this case that’s not a bad thing.
As much as the California wine country in Sideways, the Hawaii of The Descendants is an important part of
the story. The title alludes both to the state’s unique history—haole money men displacing missionaries
and, then, the native aristocracy—to King’s two daughters. As Clooney’s
voiceover, which paraphrases the novel, tells us, Matt’s the understudy, now
cast as the star parent of his ten-year-old, and he doesn’t know what he’s
doing. So he gets his 17-year-old, away at boarding school, to help. The older
daughter is played by Shailene Woodley, erstwhile costar of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, who’s
both terrific and looks the age she’s playing. (First-time actress Amara Miller
seems very natural as the younger daughter, a smaller part.)
Clooney is almost too likeable in the lead; only the
voiceover and the anger of his daughter (no flashbacks) assure us that King’s
been a neglectful husband and father or anything other than the reasonable man
he seems here. A subplot about King’s being the trustee of a 25,000-acre parcel
of land set to be sold to developers resolves how you’ll likely assume as soon
as you’ve seen that first gorgeous shot of pristine coastline. Still, there’s
an honesty to the storytelling and a good deal of humor right at the same time
as the sad parts, which is as it should be in a movie where a comatose woman
features so prominently. Alive yet unavailable, she forces King both to contemplate
her death when he’s still angry at her and to figure out what he values.
And yes, it’s a tearjerker.
viewed 11/14/11 at Rave UPenn (PFS screening) and reviewed 11/18/11
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