The Descendants

I always wanted to go Hawaii but somehow never managed to do so. Until today. While the truth is that I didn't actually board a plane, cross the skies of the USA, and then fly about halfway across the Pacific Ocean; instead I went to see the new George Clooney film called The Descendants which is set in Hawaii.
 
Just to set the record straight, this wasn't the Hawaii that you always see in the travel videos, or the brochures, or the travel magazines. Well it was - but just not in the way you expected. You see The Descendants isn't about vacationing in Paradise, or about an idyllic life. Rather it is about living in 'Paradise', or as Clooney's character Matt King says at the end of his introductory voice-over in the film:
 
"Paradise? Paradise can go fuck itself."
 
Clooney's Matt King is a practicing attorney in Ohau - where there are traffic jams on the highway, crime, dirt, cloudy days with torrential rains, and life with all of its issues, problems, and confounding situations with all the warts showing - just like we see all around us here in mainland USA.
 
Matt King has been dealt some rather difficult issues - his wife has just been horrifically injured in a boating accident and lies comatose in the hospital, he has to care for his two daughters, aged 10 and 17, and he hasn't a clue on how to go about that, and finally he is the sole trustee for a trust that owns 25.000 prime acres in Kauai, and his family wants to sell it. He's still on the fence about that.
 
A son of the King family, many generations back, married a woman that you might call the descendant of Hawaiian royalty, namely King Kamehameha. She was something like a grand niece. Long story - short version, The King family through a trust, now owns the rights to this huge parcel of undeveloped and pristine land.
 
After the boating accident, King's youngest daughter Scotti played by Amara Miller begins acting out in school. Clearly she's lost and hasn't any way to know how to deal with grief. Her father decides to go and get the eldest daughter, Alexandra, portrayed by Shailene Woodley out of the expensive private boarding school where she is, so she might help out home with Scotti. Only Alexandra is going through her own issues which including drinking, partying, and recently, she has a huge argument with her mother.
 
So when all are finally under the same roof, and Matt sits down Alexandra and lays it out for her that's going to have to grow up, set aside her differences with Mom, and help get Scotti back on track - where upon Alexandra drops the bombshell on Matt.
 
"You don't have a clue do you? Mom was cheating on you. That's what we were fighting about."
 
You sit in the audience and you watch the emotions make their way across Clooney's face. Anger, disbelief, frustration, anger, desperation - he's shocked speechless and there are no easy answers. This is atop the already known problems of Mom's coma, the fact the he hasn't really any experience at parenting, and the decision that must be made about the land.
 
So, we hitch up our wagons to Matt and we're going to spend the rest of the film with him as he seeks his answers. He's going to have make a journey towards beginning the rest of his life with these huge obstacles that have suddenly landed not only before him, but also on him, as well as inside of him.
 
Well George Clooney is more than up to the task. This is a Clooney we've not seen before. He's not going to be able to wisecrack, or draw a weapon, or outsmart someone. He won't be able to draw weapons or man-power from a personal arsenal. As Matt King, these are his problems and his alone.
 
I didn't expect that my first visit to Hawaii would produce tears. But it did. Yet this film cannot be just pigeon-holed as a tear jerker. It is much more than that. No one is going to label this film gloom and doom. In fact, we won't cry until we see young Scotti begin to tear up after her Mom has passed.
 
But short of tears we do experience the high and lows of family life. Our heart goes out to Matt King as we know that his struggles have been played out in homes maybe less grand than the one they live in, or in homes more grand - they're the quintessentials of life - no matter where or how you live. All of us will go through these same things.
 
That's the beauty of this film. Directed by Alexander Payne and written by Payne and Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, the film manages to bring you into a situation of sadness that will only get worse as the film proceeds. Yet Payne and Clooney, as well as the supporting roles of the kids and other family members, (watch for former leading man Robert Forster as King's Father-in-law) bring us to a place where there is light at the end of the tunnel. Not a happy ending in the usual sense - but that King and his kids, have to move on, and the decisions have to be made, and for those of us who watch the fim - we have to move on as well. You leave the theater not with an exalted feeling of closure, or even wow, we got through it.
 
Instead you feel grateful for having had the opportunity to peer into the home of a successful attorney, whose wife cheated on him. Into a family where the Mother has just suffered calamitous injury, and there you had a chance to see how the children of this family had to struggle to cope. But they and you will emerge. Life goes on.
 
Yes, all is not well in paradise. Then again it never was.

The Descendants is a touching, yet slow-moving film.  It stars George Clooney as Matt King, a man who has just found out that his wife was in a boating accident and is now in a coma.  What makes matters worse for Matt is that the marriage was not in great shape before the accident, and now he realizes that he needs to be a better husband.  Unfortunately, it might be too late.
The movie takes place in Hawaii where Matt is a wealthy lawyer with hereditary ties to thousands of acres of land there.  He is the sole trustee to this large plot of land and is deciding who to sell it to, or whether to sell it at all.  It seems that most of the local Hawaiians see it as a beautiful untouched piece of land and would prefer that it not be sold, as any potential buyers could make it a less beautiful place in their eyes.
But Matt is more concerned with other issues once he finds out that his wife had actually been having an affair.  He discovers this news from his own daughter.  She even tells him who she was having the affair with.  While The Descendants moves at a slow pace, it does keep you wondering what will happen if Matt decides to confront the guy.  He begins to follow the man but always seems hesitant to actually say something to him.  He’s probably not sure whether to punch him or just talk to him, or at least let him know that the woman he was seeing is now in coma and may never come out of it.
In addition to the slow pacing of the film, it even has a very mellow score with light Hawaiian music playing throughout many scenes.  It’s a decent story about family which involves a father now trying to take care of his daughters on his own; but it can be boring at times, especially upon second viewing I’d imagine.  And by the time Matt must make a decision about selling the land by the end of the film, we’re just not that interested.  That just seems to be a little side-story which the audience really won’t care about.  There’s has been a lot of talk about this movie being the front-runner for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.  I’ve already seen some better movies this year though.  Still, it’s got some very good acting by George Clooney along with others in the film and it’s worthy to check out if you’re in a relaxing state of mind.

http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-philadelphia/danny-porcaro