I see so many crappy films sometimes I forget that sometimes adults make movies, too. The Descendants is a film for adults – the plot revolves around a woman in a coma; the crisis is the husband Matt (George Clooney) trying to figure out on the fly how to be father, trustee and griever all at the same time. It is full of mature humor, like when Grandpa Scott (Robert Forster) cold cocks Sid (Nick Krause, who has a future as Seann William Scott impersonator) merely for insensitivity. This is the kind of film adults love and kids find godawful boring. So, you know, get a sitter.
The Descendants opens with coma-woman Elizabeth happily motorboating. On water. Look, she actually lived once! Enough of that. Those ten seconds are the last we see her with her eyes open. Matt is the self-described “back-up parent” and we see why immediately: after failing to sort out his youngest daughter, Matt retrieves the eldest Alex (Shailene Woodley) from her boarding school. —Descendants makes no mention of why Matt’s girls Scottie and Alex (-andra) have boy names; guess I’m just not smart enough to sort that one out — Dad finds her drunk and AWOL, but offers little more than a disappointed grimace and the phrase, “we’re going home.” Given the chance for some alone time, Matt confesses to his troubled girl (who is, suddenly, untroubled once the film gets going) her mother isn’t going to make it. She counters the way teens do – she emotionally bribes him into letting loser boyfriend Sid hang around for a while, then she tells him mom was having an affair. This sets up Clooney running several blocks in broad daylight down the road in bedroom slippers with a “I’m gonna kill somebody” look on his face. The intense combination of pathos and hilarity in the moment is the essence of Alexander Payne and the reason we loved Sideways.
Within her coma, Elizabeth acts as the dramatic version of a MacGuffin – she’s the source of all the family suffering without even doing anything. When her affair is revealed (the affair takes place before the accident, of course. Otherwise, that would be kind of awkward), she becomes the source of all the family pain as well. I find this gimmick, nay, driver both brilliant and cheap at the same time. Here we get people to act purely on motivations given by a doorstop, and yet the doorstop never gets to tell her POV. This is essentially, the same gimmick as the remake of The Women, and I truly disliked it in that film; here it makes more sense, but I’d still like Elizabeth to get her day in court.
Three separate times in The Descendants, George Clooney is asked to deliver what amounts to a soliloquy; the only other present on stage is his target coma-ridden-wife. All three have different tones, different motivations and different outcomes. And you know what? Clooney nailed all three. Hmmm. That can’t be the first time I’ve heard that sentence. Sorry, I digress. Ever since that damn “motorboat” reference. Delivering a convincing speech to an imagined respondent? These are the clips they show on Oscar night.
FWIW, the “descendants” part of The Descendants refers to Matt and his kinfolk being direct relatives of King Kamehameha and thus inheritors of a significant portion of awesome real estate. Those who cannot guess how this particular story line will resolve itself likely have never seen a film before.
Rated R, 115 Minutes
D: Alexander Payne
W: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash
Genre: Comedic angst
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Oscar night viewers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Children
Thought Shailene Woodley gave an outstanding performance. You didn’t mention how woefully awful Beau Bridges was, but that’s probably just as well–the movie wasn’t about him and his onscreen time was mercifully brief.