The Descendants

The Descendants is a wonderful film that puts an interesting twist on a tragic event. Most films that involve a spouse being involved in a terrible accident or being stricken with a disease show how the loving family rushes to be by their side and we have endless stories of how wonderful of a person they were. The Descendants does not do this and instead forces us to examine how one family handles just this sort of issue. We have a family that has realistic problems, we have dysfunction, sadness, anger and love. George Clooney does a remarkable job in this film allowing us to forget just how suave and debonair he can be as he peels back our image of him as a person and connects with deep feelings that hit us all. As a recent newlywed this film at times made me want to hug my wife and never let her go and at other times it just made me want to cry with how sometimes "life" takes people in different directions and it just sort of happens. The film's antagonist if you can call him that is not treated as you might expect and quite honestly Matthew Lillard gives the best performance of his career in my opinion. Understated and played to perfection. Judy Greer also has a small but extremely pivotal role in this film and she is just sensational. In many ways her character undergoes the most drastic change and suffers the most emotional damage in the film. Great directors and I would argue that Alexander Payne is quickly becoming that (he also made the brilliant Sideways) allow for their actors and actresses to have moments to shine and rather then just show up there time on screen matters and Judy Greer plays the role to perfection and gets a chance to show some amazing acting chops proving that 13 Going On 30 did not show her true range. Beau Bridges has a great role in this film as well and so does Robert Forster. Again great directors and a great screenplay allows for each character to matter and the characters in this film certainly matter. George Clooney's character Matt King has two daughters in this film. They are simply outstanding. Shailene Woodley plays Matt King's older and more troubled daughter who reveals her own secrets and winds up becoming her fathers biggest ally and it is her character who really is the catalyst who saves her family. Her younger sibling played by Amara Miller also does a great job and you can see how well she represents a "real" person as she is not the perfect child but she perfectly represents how a child her age acts and behaves and really she is the perfect daughter that a father could ask for. So many films about families try to define them in traditional ways or try to explore some horrible abuse that happened within the family. The Descendants presents a realistic family who are faced with a terrible problem and it realistically shows how they react to the situation. In the end the family is damaged and yet also somehow complete. This is a very powerful film that has moved more than most other films that I have seen in recent times. i imagine when I have children that I will be unable to watch this film at all due to it's subject matter. Check out The Descendants.