The Dsecendants: Okay but Overrated

 

The Descendants (2011)

Directed by Alexander Payne

Fox Searchlight, 115 minutes, R (for prolific F-bombs)

★★★

 

 

I keep an eye out for lists of critically regarded films that I’ve not seen. Sometimes I find gems, other times duds best left to molder. Mostly, I find a lot of dead ordinary efforts. The Descendants falls into the third category notwithstanding its five Oscar nominations in 2011, including Best Picture, Best Director (Alexander Payne) and Best Actor. It was bypassed for those, but won for Best Adapted Screenplay and that was a stretch.

 

Overall, The Descendants feels like a weepy destined to be edited for the Hallmark Channel. An opening sequence of a woman recklessly water skiing sets the table; Elizabeth King is about to suffer an accident that will leave her in a coma. Her husband Matthew (George Clooney) hopes that she will awaken, but it doesn't look good and he faces the possibility of becoming a single dad to two daughters, 17-year-old Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and nine-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller). How will a workaholic lawyer in Honolulu who has been only tangentially involved in his daughters’ lives cope?  Alex, in fact, has to be retrieved from a private school where among other things, her drug habit was addressed, though she remains an angry, disrespectful, foul-mouthed enigma. For inexplicable reasons, she wants the seemingly clueless happy-go-lucky Sid (Nick Krause) present at traumatic family events.

 

Matt has a lot on his plate, including serving as the sole trustee for 25,000 acres of undeveloped land on Kauai that his cousins, including good-time Hugh (Beau Bridges) are urging him to sell before the trust dissolves in seven years. (They stand to make a veritable fortune from such a sale.) Matt has other things on his mind, but it’s what escaped his mind that comes back to haunt him. In an angry outburst Alex reveals that her mother had been having an affair, something confirmed by the Kings' best friends Kai and Mark. Now Matt is both angry and scared, as doctors inform him that Elizabeth will not come out of her coma and under her living will, they are obliged to pull the plug.

 

The Kings leave the Big Island for what is ostensibly an escape to Kauai, but it's really a search for Elizabeth’s lover. It leads to Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard), but Matt’s revenge fantasy cools when he discovers that Brian is married to the very sweet Julie (Judy Greer) and has two children. Brian insists that he did not love Elizabeth and begs him not to destroy his family. He's a sleazebag, but Matt simply informs him of Elizabeth’s impending death and lets that sink in. But Matt is not about to forget that  Brian is a realtor who would make scads of money if the trust lands go to a particular developer. Cue a tearful deathbed scene and observe how Matt resolves the trust.

 

There is a back story involving how a white family came into the possession of so much land on an island that was once the domain of native Hawaiians. The King surname connects to actual historical events, namely the 19th century relationship between missionaries and sugar barons, though the movie’s King family link is purely a script contrivance.

 

The Descendants has been labeled a tragicomedy or a dramedy, hybrid terms which often indicate a movie is neither fish nor fowl. That is indeed true in this case. The Descendants is often touching, but in predictable ways and it’s hard to determine why Clooney's performance was lauded. He’s actually flat in the film, which is appropriate for earlier sequences, but Clooney seldom sounds a different note. In my view, critics were too enamored of his mystique to see that there wasn't much depth to his performance. Woodley was rail-thin in presence and a brat for much of the movie. It doesn't speak well when you are out acted by a nine-year-old. Nor is there any particular reason why Sid is in the script at all other than providing goofy comic relief and later leading Matt to see that snap judgments are not always reality. Not sure that comes as a great revelation to anyone.

 

We are left with a movie that might make some reach for the tissue box, and is perfectly fine as a diversion. It’s worth watching if nothing better presents itself, but don't buy into the hype; it is indeed very ordinary.

 

Rob Weir