Set in the archipelago of the Hawaiian Islands, THE DESCENDANTS (M) is the latest marvel from director Alexander Payne, whose string of successes includes ELECTION, ABOUT SCHMIDT and SIDEWAYS. As noted in the prologue, families are like archipelagos – each member part of a group but separate.
George Clooney stars as Matt King, descendant of a Hawaiian Queen, and trustee of the family estate which constitutes the last great tract of land on their island.
He and his cousins have decided to sell due to a change in family trust law and while he is embroiled with clan counseling, his wife, Elizabeth is involved in a boating accident that leaves her in a coma.
While Elizabeth is placed on life support machinery in the intensive care unit, Matt seeks his own life support by gathering his two daughters about him, the eldest, Alex, played by Shailene Woodley, the younger, Scottie, named for her grandfather, played by Amara Miller, making her motion picture debut.
Told that Elizabeth will never resuscitate, another layer of grief is formed when Alex reveals the truth about her estrangement from her mother, a bombshell that resonates through family, friends and the fate of the Trust Fund.
This is a big bold satisfying movie, that balances the braying and the bawling, the comic and the tragic, the hilarious and the heartbreaking. Clooney’s emotional nuance is exhilarating.
Served by a sensational cast that includes Patricia Hastie as Elizabeth who apart from the opening scene remains comatose in a hospital bed throughout the picture, Sid (Nick Krause), Beau Bridges and Michael Ontkean as cousins, Judy Greer, Clooney’s co-star in THREE KINGS and Robert Forster as Matt’s irascible father-in-law, Scott Thorson.
Shot by Phedon Papamichael who lensed SIDEWAYS and recently was director of photography on Clooney’s THE IDES OF MARCH, the film feels like paradise postponed, with overcast skies predominant. Yet it still makes you hanker for Hawaii.
The screenplay by Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings, is a zinger, beautifully layered and textured and fulsome, peopled with multidimensional characters and an evolving plot line that’s full of surprise.
THE DESCENDANTS is the first great film of the year, adult, assured and satisfying – worth seeing twice.
© Richard Cotter
12th January, 2012
Tags: Sydney Cinema Reviews- THE DESCENDANTS, Reviewer Richard Cotter, Alexander Payne, George Clooney, Shailene Woodly, Amara Miller, Patricia Hastie, Nick Krause, Beau Bridges, Michael Ontkean, Judy Greer, Robert Forster, Phedon Papamichael, Karl Hart Hemmings.