The Descendants

The Descendants (2011)

Director: Alexander Payne

Cast: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Beau Bridges, Matthew Lillard, Judy Greer 

It is generally understood now that Alexander Payne's films embody contemporary American life in such a uniquely hyper-realistic way that their supremely dark overtones become farcical. Election reaches the zenith of farce when we encounter Mr. McAllister (Matthew Broderick) having sex with his wife while fantasizing about his annoyingly ambitious teenage student, the antagonist Tracy Flick. Like Citizen Ruth, Election's dour ending and nice-guys-finish-last message (in which "real" nice guys don't actually exist)  established Payne as a filmmaker who certainly knows how to leave a bad taste in the mouth. Which is why Sideways was such a pleasant departure from his usual shtick. Even though Sideways featured Payne's usual crude debauchery and cosmic punishment towards its male protagonist, the final frame left a semblance of hope for an American culture shaped by failure and unfairness. 

The Descendants comes off as a desperate attempt at mature filmmaking, but that doesn't make it entirely worthless. The narrative revels in a simple formula: following its hero, George Clooney's Matt King, through an exploration of personal loss as he travels throughout Hawaii with his young daughters to confront his dying, comatose wife's lover (Matthew Lillard). Sincerely lacking in complex dialogue, the film relies primarily on a superb lead performance by Clooney, who temporarily transforms his reputation of playing affluent and suave baller-man to playing affluent and boring every-man. Devoid of nasty sex, humorous happenstances, and cruel realities, The Descendants instead opts to represent a moment in the life of a family uprooted by tragedy. 

Much like Election's use of middle-America suburbia and Sideway's use of the California landscape, The Descendants benefits enormously from its setting,  not so much romanticizing Hawaii but rather successfully and charmingly utilizing its milieu for plot and character development (Matt's wife did injure herself in a motor boat accident, after all). At the crux of the film's narrative arch is the development that Matt and his family will sell a precious spot of land during the duration of his wife's slow death. The film skillfully converges this plot point with the tragedy surrounding Matt's family, and the result is that no scene feels superfluous or especially trite.

In the end, however, one crucial element is severely lacking in The Descendants, which was somewhat present in the tender Sideways, and ubiquitous throughout the purely comedic Election: the element of genuineness.  Much of the film comes off as blatantly dishonest, and it's a profound testament to its brilliant performances that the movie doesn't drown in convention right off the bat. The languid dialogue is solely responsible, and one has to wonder what The Descendants could have been with a strong script rewrite and less exposition from its voice overs and unnecessary characters (in one scene, the King family bumps into a relative at the airport who drives them to view the coveted piece of land to be sold, only so that Matt can explain the sale to the audience). Likewise, the final denouement of the movie drags on twenty minutes too long.

It is ironic, then, that The Descendants feels disingenuous because it lacks the crudeness and dark vulgarity found in Payne's previous films. The film's best scene is the last, when ashes are dumped into the ocean in a ceremonial and deliberately underplayed farewell. "Well, that's it", Matt says to his grieving children. 

Sometimes, all a sappy family drama really needs is a depressing kick to the head.

B-