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The Descendants has no moment that you can’t predict coming up soon, but that matters very little in the grand scheme of things. When something is so well-written, acted, directed, and put together you can easily forgive the fact that you know exactly how it will all end. As it moves along to the resolutions we know are coming it strikes some unique tones and creates true moments filled with humor and the messiness of life. It’s a film in which the stages of grief are acted out as they happen.
As his wife lies dying in a hospital bed, a man must step up and become a parent again after years of leaving that duty to his wife. On top of that, he’s been named trustee to his family’s large land-inheritance on the Hawaiian Islands. To further complicated the matters are the cousins who are positioning for a sale of the land that will make everyone rich(er), a discovery that his wife was carrying on an affair right before her accident, and trying to become a parent when your kids are now teenagers.
I loved that The Descendants wasn’t rushing through any of these plot strands, but instead let them flow and ebb naturally and coming crashing in together in moments of serendipity and the unpredictable nature that life so awkwardly takes on much of the time. You see, his emotional reactions to one sub-plot are directly affected by all of the rest. The film shows you how grief takes on many forms and emotional colors, and how it can make you laugh at something when you’d normally cry, and vice versa.
At the heart of the film rests the central performances from George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Amara Miller and Nick Krause. Woodley and Miller play the two teenage daughers, Krause is Woodley’s well…it’s hard to define. He’s clearly her best friend, but if there’s something more going on between the two of them it wouldn’t surprise, but it was never spelled out. And Clooney is, of course, our main character. That the film never asks us to like Clooney is great, because who else in Hollywood is more likable or beloved? His character’s flaws are put on prominent display from the very beginning, and he is aware of them. Throughout the film we watch as he tries to change and become more involved in his life, but change is a long and slow process. That’s not to say that we don’t observe some, but we don’t observe as much as other films would allow us to view. And Woodley as the eldest daughter is an absolute knockout. I was rooting for her to get an Oscar nomination, but it never came to pass. She is so natural in front of the camera; there is never a moment of artifice or awareness of its presence. A solid group of character actors lend their support, with Robert Forster and Judy Greer delivering some very impressive, award worthy work in relatively short amount of screen time.
And by the end, as the core family unit goes out onto the water to spread the ashes and some flowers into the waves, I felt the same catharsis that the main characters must have. Truly, one of the best pictures of 2011. But I think I forgot to mention that much of it is actually very funny. Just like Payne’s other films like Election or Sideways.
