*** out of ****
Directed by: Alexander Payne
Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Robert Forster and Judy Greer
Running time: 115 minutes
At first glance, the King family – father Matt (George Clooney), daughters Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and Scottie (newcomer Amara Miller) – live a comfortable life in exotic Hawaii, with a beautifully furnished home and unlimited access to an oceanside club.
But, as Matt’s disgruntled opening voice-over assures the audience, this Hawaii is not a permanent paradise. His wife, Elizabeth, has been lying comatose in the hospital for two months after she slammed her head during a powerboat race – and she’s not going to wake up anytime soon.
Elizabeth had a close, enduring relationship with her daughters, a pride that Matt cannot attest to. As he regretfully informs the audience, he’s the “backup parent.” Now that Scottie is reaching the cusp of preteen rebellion (she’s 10) and Alexandra has turned to drinking (even though she’s attending a boarding school to help curb a past addiction), Matt doesn’t know how to handle his daughters.
The title of the film, adapted from a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, refers to two lines of lineage extended from the protagonist.
First, to Matt’s great-great grandmother, whose relationship with a missionary on the island has bestowed him the honour of being sole trustee for 25 acres of virgin Hawaiian land. His cousins want him to sell this property to a developer, and in the process unfurl millions into their laps.
Second, it refers to the distance between Matt and his daughters. Matt wades in deep waters, unable to make a solid connection with either Alex or Scottie while desperately trying to reconcile the tattered relationship he had with his wife, who may never come back to him.
As our patriarch, Clooney is magnificent: bitterly sharp as usual but with a piercing vulnerability cruising underneath. Hollywood’s favourite bachelor hasn’t played many fathers during his career, but now that he’s starting to look and sound like one, he captures the strain of raising a family with aplomb. Weakened by the waves that keep crashing into him, Clooney manages to channel his smart-alec persona into a character who keeps his feelings below the surface.
Also notable is Shailene Woodley, who penetrates her rebellious teenager trope with more pathos and bite than one would expect. Woodley reminds me of a slouched version of Natalie Portman circa the late 1990s, offering a scathing wit that adds to her character’s sincerity. Her character is vital to bringing about changes in her father, and Woodley is every bit Clooney’s equal.
The frigid father-daughter relationship brings rise to some rather tender bonding moments later on in the film. However, these moments of family disarray – which eventually surmises in connection later on – aren’t explored with the depth that a film examining the generational gap should. The final shot of the movie is poignant, but not entirely convincing.
The Descendants comes from writer/director Alexander Payne, who brought us the smart comedies Sideways (for which he won a screenwriting Oscar) and the underappreciated Election.
While his latest film is not a comedy, it bears similarities to those earlier films, which also focus on a bruised male schlub strugging in several of his relationships and trying to make the best of a bad situation. In his films, characters have a knack for saying the wrong, strikingly inappropriate thing, and this trend continues here.
But Payne’s bitter cynicism, transparent in those films, starts to break apart in The Descendants just as Matt’s sour outlook shifts. With a relaxed, languid pace, this is Payne’s sunniest and most romantic film, and the film works best when it embraces the warm sentiment that any Edenic location like Hawaii should set.
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