Movies Reviews

The Descendants – Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Nov 16, 2011, 10:50 GMT

A distant husband and father is forced to re-build his strained relationship with his two daughters after his wife suffers a boating accident off of Waikiki. ...more

The Descendants opens with a voice over warning that nothing is what it seems. The story takes place in Hawaii, but Clooney’s Matt King says that despite appearances of luxury, simplicity and beauty, life in Hawaii is like anywhere else, the realities of poverty, unhappiness, despair and the rest of it happens there.  

He is a lawyer with a beautiful heritage home and two young girls.   But his wife is in hospital on life support following a boating accident when another man was at the wheel.

It’s a painfully familiar story to anyone who has been through the death of a loved one and revelations they might not have wanted to hear.   It hits marriage, teenaged rebellion, childhood, Alzheimer’s Disease, love, friendship, betrayal, resignation, morality and much of the vast canvas of the human condition. 

It crosses three generations, and depends on family bonds and history.  It’s a remarkably ambitious pulling together of these things in just over two hours and its nearly flawless. 

Matt’s wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) is seen as his idealized wife in her element, waterskiing and loving life. Cut to the present and she is in a coma, hooked up to a breathing machine and otherwise lifeless.  Matt must decide not if to unplug but when, to adhere to her final wishes.

Matt fetches his eldest daughter in boarding school on another island; he wants her to make peace with her mother, whom she despises.  After an uncomfortable journey and time at home, she tells him she hates her mother because she was having an affair. 

Matt sets off on a quest to find out who he is and confront the man, taking his daughters and a boyfriend to another island where the second chapter of the story begins.

It is excruciating to watch Matt take hit after hit, as he discovers his friends’ and family betrayals and insensitivities.  It was common knowledge his wife was having an affair and that she was going to leave him and they all blamed him for working too hard. 

All of this is set against a land dispute between Matt’s cousins, and a mysterious potential buyer.  If the sale goes through they would all be millionaires. 

Shailene Woodley as the eldest daughter has uncommon ability and depth for someone so young, and she is given plenty of room to use her gifts.  She begins the film as the snappish, disrespectful and hostile towards her father and her terminally ill mother.  

As the family navigates the emotional seas around the mother’s infidelity and certain death, she blooms; it’s a breathtaking arc.

And speaking of arcs, her irritating, clueless slacker boyfriend (Nick Krause) who accompanies the family on its truth seeking mission sees enough to gain some wisdom.  His story is one of the film’s most surprising and rewarding highlights.

Once again, George Clooney knocks it out of the park in a powerfully moving portrayal of a man in desperate straits.  He has a deep understanding of the material and expresses it with both precision and lifelike naturalism. It’s an Oscar worthy performance and The Descendants is an Oscar worthy film and one of the year’s best.  

Prepare to go through hell with a family and feel heavy hearted afterwards, but knowing you have experienced something beautiful and transformative.  This is George Clooney and Alexander Payne’s shared moment.

Visit the movie database for more information.

35mm drama
Written and directed by Alexander Payne
Opens: Nov 16
Runtime: 115 minutes
MPAA: Rated R for language including some sexual references
Country: USA
Language: English