The Descendants Review

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 12.05.2011

Alexander Payne and George Clooney team to tell the tale of a man searching for the truth behind his comatose wife's affair. But does the film live up to its massive year-end-award buzz?

THE DESCENDANTS (2011)



Directed by: Alexander Payne
Written by: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash
Based on the book by: Kaui Hart-Hemmings
Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller, Nick Krause, Robert Forster, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer and Beau Bridges
Rated R for language including some sexual references


With The Descendants, writer/director Alexander Payne completes what could be considered a sort of stylistic trilogy begun with About Schmidt and Sideways. Like those films, The Descendants is something of a road-movie, concerning a man searching for himself. And like those films, it is both hilarious and heartbreaking, and not always at different times.

George Clooney stars as Matt King, a wealthy lawyer living in Hawaii whose family descended from the union of white missionaries and Hawaiian royalty. As a result, Matt’s family have long been owners of thousands of acres of untouched land on the islands, which has kept them rich. Now, the trust on the final piece of this land is up in seven years, and as sole trustee it is up to Matt to make a deal for the land that will satisfy the desires of his numerous relatives.

This would be stressful enough, but further complicating Matt’s life is a recent speedboat accident which has left his wife Elizabeth comatose. When he is given the news that she will not recover, and must be taken off of life support per her wishes, Matt is forced to confront the fact that he has no idea how to be a lone father to his two young daughters. Already sensing hints of rebellion from 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller), Matt brings his 17-year-old daughter Alex (Shailene Woodley) home from a boarding school she was sent to in order to help her through issues with drugs. Matt tells Alex he needs her not only to help with Scottie, but also brought her back to allow her to say goodbye to her mother, even though he knows the two were not on the best of terms.

But when Alex reveals that her problems with her mother were due to her knowledge of an extramarital affair that Matt never even had any suspicions of, Matt’s world is rocked even further. Faced with this new knowledge that he knew his wife even less than he thought he did, he goes on an island-hopping search to find her lover; ostensibly to give the man the news of Elizabeth’s condition and allow him to say his own goodbyes, but perhaps even more because he just needs to see and be face-to-face with this man who meant so much more to his wife in her final months than he did. He is joined on his trek by both daughters and, against Matt’s wishes, Alex’s good friend Sid (Nick Krause), whom Alex says she needs along for moral support.

Needless to say, this is pretty heavy stuff, which is why Payne is exactly the right guy to bring it to the screen (he co-wrote the screenplay with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, adapted from a novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings). In the hands of a more mawkish director (say, Cameron Crowe, for instance), this material would be in danger of slipping over into the unbearably maudlin, a sappy weep-fest that loses touch with reality as it instead goes for easy heartstring-pulling. But Payne has never been one to shy away from the truth behind his tales – from the often uncomfortable but undeniable dark humor that sometimes arises at our worst times, to the jarringly realistic imperfections of his characters. A scene where Matt harshly berates his comatose wife – only moments before criticizing Alex for doing the exact same thing – rings more humanly true than any other moment I have seen in a theater all year.

The Descendants, like Payne’s other work, strikes a fragile balance between humor and pathos. This is definitely Payne’s least funny film, both because of the darker subject material and also because the director seems to have matured to a point where he is more comfortable letting the drama really drive the majority of the narrative. That’s not to say there aren’t laughs here – there are some pretty big ones, in fact. But the film never loses sight of the sadness underlying everything, which in turn allows its characters the sort of real redemptive catharses that often ring hollow in more joking material.

Of course, all this would be for naught without the right cast anchoring it, and here again Payne has done wonders. Although he once turned down Clooney for Sideways (the role went to Paul Giamatti, instead), Payne was wise to bring him onboard here. This is one of Clooney’s best performances yet. He is able to fully shed the usual lone-wolf maverick feel he is known for (both onscreen and off), and easily slips into the role of a confused, out-of-his element father faced with revelations that threaten to tear apart his fairly comfortable world. Matt King is a man trying to do the right thing even while dealing with the anger he feels at his dying wife. This is the most fragile and lost Clooney has ever felt on screen, and further evidence of his tremendous talents. If there was any doubt (which I’m not even sure there was), watching Clooney nail this new kind of character for himself is just further evidence that he is the Hollywood icon of this generation.

But as great as Clooney is, the real show-stealer might be Shailene Woodley. While Amara Miller is quite good as Scottie (particularly for a first-time performer), Woodley is tremendous as Alex, a rebellious teen forced to question the importance of her anger at her mother in the face of a larger issue. Unlike most teenage characters in movies, Woodley actually comes across like a real teenager (I know, it’s weird). Though Matt is technically the main character of the film, Woodley’s performance makes her attempts at forgiveness ring just as important as his, if not more so. From what I’ve seen, this is easily the best female performance of the year, and I can only hope it is rewarded as such as awards seasons kicks into gear.

The rest of the film’s performances are also worth noting. Beau Bridges is a lot of fun as one of Matt’s cousins, eager to see him make the right decision on the land deal. As Elizabeth’s lover, Matthew Lillard is surprisingly subdued (i.e., the exact opposite of every other Matthew Lillard performance). There’s an obvious temptation to consider his character as a villain in the piece, but neither Lillard nor Payne will let you look at it that easily. At first, I thought Lillard was an odd choice to show up in a film like this, but his work here, as brief as it might be, suggests a whole other side to the actor that we haven’t been fortunate enough to experience until now.

Meanwhile, Judy Green is absolutely devastating as Lillard’s wife, who is given one of the film’s most unforgettable moments during her own scene with the comatose Elizabeth. And in only a couple scenes, Robert Forster – as Elizabeth’s angry, heartbroken father – once again makes me wonder why he never enjoyed the sort of comeback he should have following Jackie Brown. C’mon, Hollywood, this guy is good…let’s start seeing some more of him.

Really, the only weak note in the acting department is Nick Krause as Alex’s friend, Sid – though, to be fair, that might be due more to the character itself than to the work of Krause. Sid is just such a cliché “surfer dude” character that I found his presence to be one of the film’s only regrettable elements (an unnecessary exposition-filled voice-over in the first act being the other). There’s one nice moment where Matt, in a moment of pure desperation, asks Sid for advice in dealing with his daughters, simply because he is the only guy around to talk to. But that one moment doesn’t really justify the corny comic-relief antics that make up Sid the rest of the time. You could lose his character without really affecting the movie too much.

Still, that little quibble aside, The Descendants is yet another moving, heartfelt mixture of comedy and drama from a director who continues to prove himself the modern master of that formula. Its themes of forgiveness and letting go are important and poignant, and its cast is fantastic. This is definitely one of the year’s best…now let’s hope we don’t have wait another seven years for another Alexander Payne film.


Clooney and Woodley

The 411: The Descendants continues the amazing track record of writer/director Alexander Payne. As with About Schmidt and Sideways before, Payne once again deftly mixes drama and comedy, this time with a heartbreaking but funny story of a shattered man searching for the truth about an unknown affair his now comatose wife was having before her accident. George Clooney gives one of his best performances yet, and Shailene Woodley gives a star-making performance as his angry, rebellious teenage daughter. One of the year's best.

Final Score:  9.5   [  Amazing ]