Genre: Drama/Comedy
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The Descendants should be so much better
than it is. The critics gave it nearly flawless reviews, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone calling it “damn near
perfect,” and A.O. Scott of The New York
Times raving that “to call The
Descendants perfect would be a kind of insult, a betrayal of its commitment
to, and celebration of, human imperfection. “ But I walked out feeling vastly
underwhelmed. It’s been seven years since writer-director Alexander Payne made
the instant classic American comedy Sideways,
and for a filmmaker who seems to pride himself on capturing the human
experience, he seems to have forgotten how to actually capture “human” moments
in The Descendants.
George Clooney
plays Matt King, a wealthy but miserable Hawaiian landowner. When his wife goes
into a coma after an accident he must become the father to his daughters that
he never was. His oldest daughter informs him that his wife was cheating on him
before the accident, so Matt and his daughters embark on a journey to find the
man who his wife was having an affair with.
The thing that
bothered me the most about The
Descendants is that all the characters are introduced through their flaws
only so they can appear transformed later on, and their flaws never return.
Also, there’s a subplot involving Matt’s decision about whether or not to sell
a valuable piece of land that has a conclusion more predictable than Kim
Kardashian and Kris Humphries getting divorced. Plus, a supporting character
named Sid, who is friends with Matt’s oldest daughter, is flat out annoying in
every scene he’s in.
There are some
beautiful shots of Hawaii and the acting is mostly very good, especially from
Shailene Woodley, who plays Matt’s oldest daughter, but I just kept waiting for
a moment that would explain what all the hype was about, and it never came. There
are some good scenes but Alex Payne is unable to put together a convincing
story that truly shows the human emotions he is trying to convey.
